Manhattan X
by keiranhalcyon2010
Summary: YAHF - Xander decides to embrace 'come as you aren't' on Halloween a little too much. As a result he now has the fate of the planet and the Human Race in his hands.
1. Chapter 1

**Doctor X. Manhattan **

Alexander Lavelle Harris moved in an introspective daze through the new costume shop that had opened just a few days before Halloween. His thoughts were mainly centered on two topics; one, his manly shame that Buffy(the Chosen One, the Slayer, the superhero) had to come to his rescue from getting pummeled at the hands of the biggest Jock in Sunnydale High, and two, that he had barely a few dollars to get a costume for Halloween.

Now, normally he wouldn't even bother with Halloween. It would usually be a time when he would just exile himself into the basement of his family home and watch the usual horror reruns on TV, but not before making sure to lock the door to keep his usually drunken parents out.

But the School principal; a weasel, unpleasant, and stupid little man, had roped him, Buffy and his longest friend of all time, Willow, into escorting a group of children for Trick or Treating around Sunnydale suburbs.

He turned his attention back to the here and now, and looked enviously at the Star Wars costumes on display, _way out of budget for me_. He passed the Marvel heroes section, again, same story, cool costumes, way too expensive. It was as he passed the DC Comics costume section that he saw a price tag that amazingly enough, matched his budget exactly.

He reached towards the plastic bag the tag was attached to and pulled it off the rack. Inside was a canister of what looked like luminescent blue body paint, sparkle blue spandex shorts, and a small temporary tattoo that looked like a planetary diagram. He fumbled with the costume bag a moment to see the label and his eyes bugged out..._how cool_.

It would've never occurred to him to go as that superhero, since to dress as him, didn't involve dressing much at all. It would require a bit of personal bravery, but what better way to show that he was not a coward.

He tightened his grip on the bag and spying Buffy and Willow at the other end of the store, looking and cooing at one of those frilly 18th Century dresses, he moved to the next aisle to shield his choice from them. He went to the counter, where the shopkeeper, Ethan, looking about the same age as Giles, was waiting expectantly.

"Oh my, what a daring choice, young man," Ethan's eyes glittered with _intent?_ "but also a good one. I hope your physique is up to pulling it off."

"I'm good," Alexander replied. Contrary to what many assumed of him, Alexander or 'Xander' as he was known to his friends, was far from a 'goofball clown', sure he enjoyed it but it was a persona created in the crucible to shield those closest to him from the horrible truth of what his 'real' home life did to him. As soon as he had been old enough to get in shape and become stronger, he had done so with zeal...now his parents, his _father_ Tony especially, knew better than to try and vent his frustrations out on his son. To protect that aspect, was one of the reasons he always dressed in baggies and overly large Hawaiian shirts. He also didn't do as well as he could against vampires...sure he could with a stake kill one, maybe two on a good night if he put his mind to it, but they were still way too fast and strong for him, a normal human being. So all he did was to just do enough to keep himself and his friends alive.

"Hmm," mused the shopkeeper, "perhaps since you seem so confident about it, I'll throw in a set of solid blue colored contacts for you at no extra charge."

"Wow, that's generous." Xander grinned excitedly.

"Customer is King, and all that." Ethan said as he placed the contacts in the bag and sealed it up. Xander handed over the money and with a skip in his step bounced over to Buffy and Willow.

"Hey Xander!" greeted Willow with a wave. "What'd you get?"

"It's a surprise," he said mysteriously.

"Hey, look, Xander..." Buffy began uncertainly, "I'm...really sorry about this morning."

"Do you mind Buffy? I'm trying to repress." Xander felt his irritation with his embarrassment soaring.

"Okay, then I promise, from now on I'll let you get pummeled."

"Thank you," he replied rolling his eyes. "Okay, y'know, actually I think I could've t..." Xander halted himself. _Stop you idiot! Yeah, you could've taken Larry! But what would the consequences be?_ That was a no-brainer.

Buffy was distracted now by a costume of another dress. Still 18th Century, it was red, billowy, and frilly. Xander could feel his insides crawl just looking at it.

"Look at this," she said in amazement.

"It's amazing," chimed Willow.

"Too bulky," he disagreed, "I prefer my women in spandex."

Ethan had noticed Buffy's interest and had come over to help. "Please, let me." The shopkeeper took it off the mannequin.

"Oh, it's..." stammered the Slayer. Xander rolled his eyes. _Honestly, this is Angel she's looking to impress, if this is her reaction to a costume choice_. Xander doubted it would have much of an affect on the undead love of Buffy's life. Yeah, Angel was two hundred plus years old, but he was still a guy, and pretty much in touch with modern guy sensibilities.

"Magnificent, yes I know," Ethan said almost _patronizingly? _He held the dress in front of Buffy_. _Xander didn't know what to make of this guy. "There. Meet the hidden princess. I think we found a match. Don't you?"

"Oh, uh, I-I'm sorry. There's no way I could ever afford this."

"Oh, nonsense" scoffed Ethan. "I feel quite moved to make you a deal you can't refuse."

Xander sighed as she held the dress to herself with a dreamy expression on her face. W_ould she ever be mine?_

* * *

Xander fidgeted as he stood in front of Casa Summers. It had taken quite an effort to paint on his costume, especially in the hard to reach places. The spandex shorts were super tight and his eyes were itchy from the contacts. The only thing that worked as advertised was the tattoo that had to be placed on his forehead. But when he stared in the mirror it was really as if he was that superhero; especially if the light conditions were right.

He had to make some compromises for practicality though. Bare feet versus road tarmac and stones? feet always lost. So he got some blue slippers. Walking around in the equivalent of only a small tight swimsuit that you couldn't see with all the paint he had on... he didn't feel like getting arrested tonight so he grabbed a raincoat...and amazingly enough found a blue one in his closet.

It only occurred to him as he rang the doorbell, that Buffy might not recognize him at all. So let's see. All blue practically naked guy appears on her doorstep...what would she do? Punch first and ask questions later. He jumped to the side to be out of immediate sight.

Just in time it seemed. Buffy opened the door an expectant look on her face that fell into a puzzled frown.

"Buffy, it's me Xander."

"Xander? Why are you hiding there?"

"It, uh, occurred to me that you might punch me if I just appeared in my costume coz...uh I kinda look like a demon now that I think about it."

"Oh okay, well, I don't feel any demony vibes, so I promise I won't slay you," grinned Buffy. Xander peeked out into view. _Wow. She actually pulls that frilly dress off!_ _That black wig suits her too_. _Who am I kidding? She could make a potato sack look good_. He steeled himself and emerged fully into view...expecting anything...except the reaction he got from her it seemed.

Her eyes were as wide and bulging, and she was gaping soundlessly.

He felt terribly awkward and decided to break his own impeding emotional overload that he couldn't even begin to express with his time honored method.

"Hello, I'm Dr Osterman, you must be Lady Buffy! Lady of Buffdom, Duchess of Buffonia, I am in awe of your beauty!" He stepped past her stupefied form and into the house. This seemed to break her from it and...

"Xander?!"

"Yes?"

"Are you naked under there?" she said still in a half-daze.

"Not really," he said with a sigh, feeling his face heat up...thank goodness for the paint. He showed her by pulling slightly on the spandex shorts.

"Who're you supposed to be?"

"Willow will know...let's wait for her."

"Oooh, speaking of Willow, wait till you see..." Buffy seemed to struggle to tear her eyes away from him and looked up the stairs. Xander turned himself to see that 'Willow' was wrapped in a white ghost sheet that had the letters 'BOO' written on its front. He inwardly chuckled, that was just so...so..._Willow_.

"Hi..." she said, but trailed off as she took in the sight of Xander. He heard her gasp from within the ghost sheet and the next few moments were a virtual mirror of Buffy's reaction.

"...Casper," sighed Buffy in seeming disappointment. _Wonder why?_

"Hey, Will, that's a fine Boo you got there," grinned Xander.

"Xander?" Willow asked wonderingly.

"Yes, it's me, Wills," he sighed. Honestly, was it so hard to believe that he was actually a guy underneath his baggy clothes. Ok, so maybe he threw them a bit with his muscly-ness, but he wasn't exactly Conan. She finally noticed the tattoo on his forehead.

"Oooo. Doctor Manhattan!" she burbled excitedly.

"See," he gestured with a flourish to Willow, grinning at Buffy.

"Anyone want to fill me in?" said Buffy mildly.

"Xander dressed as a major super powerful hero from the Watchmen graphic novel series," Willow walked down the stairs and examined him closely. "Even the eyes look good."

"Oh, well, we better hurry to school to get our group of kids," Buffy said, looking at the time. "You can explain more on the way. Oh, and Xander, you better tie that coat closed. Major distracto."

"Check," he said sheepishly.

88888888888888888

The one benefit of the Doc Manhattan costume was it pretty much made him incognito until he spoke. Therefore it allowed him to avoid Larry the Pirate at the School. Snyder could only sneer at his costume as he handed off a group of children for Xander to escort.

He paused outside with his little Halloween rugrats and got them in line to brief them on the age old secrets of the 'Trick or Treat'.

"I am Doc Manhattan, and here is my recommendation on sleazing extra candy: tears are key. Tears will normally get you the double-bagger. You can also try the old 'you missed me' routine, but it's risky. Only go there for chocolate. Understand?"

They all nodded their heads.

"Okay, follow me and we'll make a success of this night."

88888888888888

Xander looked around himself in astonishment. It was chaos. Up and down the street, parents and children had seemingly 'transformed' into their costumes...his own group had turned into miniature demons and monsters that were attacking each other. Windows, cars, doors, anything breakable was seemingly being smashed by the creatures as they stormed past the various houses.

It was then that he felt it...all the hair on his body stood up...an electric surge and wind seemed to sweep over him. He held up his blue painted arm to watch in fascination as the visible arcs of electricity appeared all over it.

_No. It couldn't be happening. NO WAY!_

He screamed and his arms were flung out in a caricature of pain as the 'intrinsic field' of the atoms his body was made up of began to energize and glow blue with power and slowly from without...he began to disintegrate...arms...legs...head...body...skeleton...nerves...

...and everything faded to black...

8888888888888

Jon 'Doctor Manhattan' Osterman, felt himself reconstitute into his glowing nude blue body and absentmindedly regarded the destruction around him. The timeline here was extremely odd. Vampires, demons, or rather extra-dimensional entities existed here as a matter of daily life. How quaint. How he had ended up here was also somewhat amusing. He scanned the reality of this place with a thought and nodded to himself. An entirely different Universe, with somewhat similar physical laws, except they were not as immutable here.

He twirled his hand and a perfect rose appeared from the ether...it was easier to create and transmute here. He let the rose drop and it vanished. He also appeared to be in his relative future in this Universe; it was 1998 here.

The difference in events in this Universe was also quite startling. He had never existed here and had not been around to influence the Cold War so overwhelmingly. The Vietnam War had dragged on for years into a stalemate for the US, instead of a quick victory. And the Cold War was over; the US had won, there was no more Soviet Union...in its a place a somewhat _democratic_ Russian Federation! There was no Doomsday Clock! Even the 22nd Amendment was still in place...Nixon had resigned in disgrace, the Watergate reporters had not been killed by the Comedian! _Bill Clinton...hmm, despite his extra-marital problems, a reasonably good President._

But for all these apparent good signs on this Earth, the extra-dimensional entities were a severe threat to it not to mention the extra-terrestrial one. And what was amazing was that most people were completely blind to it!

"Xander!"

Jon turned around and said, "No, I am not Xander, Ms Rosenburg. He's not 'here' at the moment. And neither are you, strictly speaking." The girl blushed to the roots of her hair as she stared at him. Her eyes trying and somewhat failing to look anywhere but..._there_. Though what she was wearing at the moment was way more provocative than simply being nude; boots, a short, black leather skirt, and a burgundy, long sleeved, V-necked, midriff baring top.

"What do you mean?"

"You have been transformed into the essence of the costume you wore," replied Jon with a sigh, and stared off into nowhere for a few moments. _How interesting,_ he noted the future event in his mind. _Even time is mutable here_.

"What...you...Doctor Manhattan?" said Willow her voice squeaking into an astonished pitch.

"It's an interesting experience...to be in a Universe that considers me a fictional character in a graphic novel," Jon felt an actual smile on his face.

A monster chose this moment to get interested in them and growled, dashing towards them. Willow flinched as it went through her and crashed into a fence. It got up and snarled only to charge at a disinterested Jon next, and with a sigh he phased himself...the monster zipped through him and knocked itself out crashing into the lamp post he was standing next to.

"Oh my, you can..." she trailed off and Jon felt a trace of Xander influencing him as he flicked his fingers and an actual flashing light bulb appeared above her head. She looked up at it and rolled her eyes. "Funny... Oh! We have to find Buffy..."

She dashed off and again Jon felt Xander peek his interest even though he knew the Slayer would be useless to them. So he calmly set off behind the girl, towards where Buffy Summers was walking on the other side of the street. Looking quite charming in that dress.

"Buffy! Are you okay?" asked Willow worriedly. Jon sighed, didn't he just tell her about the costumes...it wasn't a great feat of logic to connect the dots. They were again interrupted by a costume monster, snarling at them and looking like it was considering using their entrails as party décor. "Buffy, what do we do?"

The Slayer's response was highly original. Her eyes widened at the sight of the monster and her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and slumped to the ground in a faint.

"I thought I pointed out that we have _all _become the essence of the costumes," said Jon, shaking his head and with a gesture to the monster sent it flying a great distance to crash against an outdoor patio set down the street. "Hence, Ms Summers is not herself, but rather an 18th Century lady with absolutely no idea of defending herself and a head full of Victorian principles, French, tea parties and high society."

"Oh no," moaned Willow, her shoulder slumping. "Well, at least we have you to protect her. Can you just please try to stick your attention to the here and now...no looking at the future or past?"

"I shall endeavor to, though the presence of your friend in my mind is helping," nodded Jon, he touched the Slayer with single finger on her forehead and immediately she was awake. He teleported himself quickly out of her immediate reach and sight so as to not startle her.

"Are you all right?" asked Willow.

"I think so," mumbled Buffy, her accent was distinctly posh.

"What year is this?"

"1775, I believe," her eyes darted everywhere, clearly confused, and she gasped when she saw Doctor Manhattan. "Do you have no shame? Walking about unclothed! And why are you glowing blue?" Jon rolled his eyes and turned his back to her. "Who are you?"

"We're friends," Willow tried to reassure.

"F-friends of whom?Y-your dress...everything is strange! How did I come to be here?" The noblewoman gibbered and started to hyperventilate.

"Breathe, okay, breathe. You're gonna faint again. Can't you do something Doctor?"

Jon turned slightly and with a gesture to Buffy, her hyperventilation stopped and she was instantly calm and serene. He gestured up with his finger and she was abruptly stood up on her own two feet.

Another monster decided to appear and attack at this moment and with another shooing gesture it was catapulted down the street.

"I think it would be better to wait this out indoors," he said.

"A DEMON! A DEMON!" Buffy abruptly lost her calm demeanor and despite her protestation on his nakedness hid behind Jon. He stared at the SUV with bright headlights flaring driving past them and looked down at the screaming woman.

"That's not a demon, it's a car." Willow shook her head in disbelief.

"What does it want?" moaned Buffy.

"It does not want anything, it's just a horseless carriage," said Jon, he turned to Willow. "Let's go to the lady's house, it is the closest."

"Okay, follow me," nodded the newly made ghost.

* * *

They entered the Slayer's home, via the kitchen door. It was an utterly unremarkable two floor affair though some of the technology piqued his interest. He sensed the electronics were pretty advanced in some of the devices within the home, well, at least in comparison to their counterparts in his Universe. Though other things were still primitive...like the gasoline driven cars, and he saw nothing to indicate that Nite Owl's advanced technology had been released when he hanged up his cape.

"There is no one within the house," declared Jon, allowing Buffy and Willow to enter.

"Where are we?" asked the noblewoman.

"Your place. Now we just need to..."

The front door abruptly banged rapidly as if someone was knocking on it. Both girls jumped nearly a foot in the air before...

"It's a mini demon," said Jon looking closely at the cordless phone hanging on the wall. "It will leave if we do nothing to indicate we are here."

"This...could be me," said Buffy, picking up a picture frame where a photo of herself smiling for the camera in a spaghetti strap top.

"It _is_ you, Buffy, can't you remember at all?" Willow intoned.

"No! I, I don't understand any of this! Uh, uh...this is some other girl! I would never wear this," the lady put the picture back as if her hand was scalded, "low apparel, and I don't like this place, and I don't like you, and I just wanna go home!"

"You _are_ home!" insisted Willow, and turned to face Manhattan. "She couldn't've dressed up like Xena?"

There was a shattering of glass as monster stuck its arm through the small windows beside the locked door. The ugly yet deadly appendage groped for anyone it could reach and it growled in anticipation. Buffy collapsed against the wall and shut her ears against the sound.

"Um. _Doc..._"

"Oh, sorry," said Jon with a nod, looking up from the TV set and another shooing gesture with his glowing blue hand and abruptly the monster appendage disappeared.

"What did you do? That wasn't telekinesis, these monsters are normally children..."

"I _know_ they are children," Jon actually felt irritated, _amazing_. Xander's presence was actually getting rid of his general apathy towards what was happening around him. "I just teleported it away a few hundred meters."

"Got it," nodded Willow suddenly weary. It occurred to her for the first time that she was dealing with a freakishly powerful person here...best not to piss him off, but that was an odd thing...from what she could remember, Doc Manhattan was usually extremely apathetic to almost anything. Sure, the second Silk Spectre had cured him somewhat of it with her affection and love, but he was still distant.

There was a sudden screaming outside, that of a woman.

Jon sighed in exasperation, as his non-linear perception of time forced him to act, set aside amazement at his new feelings, and snapped his fingers.

A decidedly attractive and statuesque woman dressed in a skin tight 'cat' suit appeared out of thin air in the house. Jon could actually feel himself surprised and his heart skip a beat...for but a brief moment, he had thought that it was Laurie. But the face was different, the body more curvy.

"Cordelia!" Willow cried out in shock.

"What the...wait a...what's going on?" Cordelia blinked at her sudden change in location.

"Okay," the trainee witch steeled herself, "your name is Cordelia, you're not a cat, you're in high school, and we're your friends. Well, sort of."

"That's nice Willow," Cordelia replied sarcastically, "and you went mental when?"

"You know us?"

"Yeah, lucky me...." The social queen of Sunnydale High glimpsed Doc Manhattan for the first time and gasped. Jon had the TV floating in its component parts in front of him and examining the microcircuitry. "Oh yeah, lucky me..." grinned Cordelia, now staring unabashedly.

"Ummm, Cordelia, do you know who you're actually ogling there?" Willow coughed, feeling herself blushing again as she also stared at Doc Manhattan.

"Oh, just a glowing naked hunk with a bod full of muscly curves and a very l..."

"Ok, yeah," Willow agreed, waving her hands frantically, "but when he isn't like that his name is usually Xander Harris."

"Dweeb-boy?!" coughed Cordelia in shock. "That Adonis is...is..._Xander_? What is going on?!"

"Short story...everyone's been turned into their Halloween costumes."

"No kidding," Queen C's eyes widened, but her eyes continued to sneak glimpses of Jon. "I was just attacked by Jo-Jo, the Dog-faced boy. Look at my costume!" She showed a torn sleeve of the suit. "Do you really think that Partytown is gonna give me my deposit back? Not on the likely. Which reminds me...how did I get from out there to in here?"

"Xander...teleported you," said Willow, trying again to avert her eyes.

"He can do that now?" Cordelia asked speculatively as she saw Jon give a gesture to the TV set and it reassembled itself and he moved on to examine the PC, which also promptly disassembled itself in mid-air for his scrutiny.

"His costume was Doctor Manhattan, a very powerful superhero." Jon nodded to himself as he stared at the CPU and absently gestured at Cordelia...she gave a start as a reverse tearing sound was heard and her own costume's sleeve was repaired as if it had never been slashed.

"And the dealio with the nudeness?"

"Doc Manhattan finds it pointless to dress, he's usually quite apathetic...meaning he doesn't care what others think of himself and his actions. It's also to do with the fact that clothes on his body doesn't last when he uses some of his powers."

"Well I'm not complaining," Cordelia's eyes sparkled.

"Okay, Doc, I have to get to somebody who can help and figure out what's going on...by the way, do _you_ know what's going on? You have Clairvoyance," Willow pointed out.

"All I will say is that you should keep Cordelia's condition in mind, or rather lack thereof," Jon said and the PC reassembled itself. "You wish to see Rupert Giles?" Willow nodded. "Very well." He gestured and Willow vanished.

"Where did she go?" queried Buffy meekly.

"To get help," said Jon, walking over.

"What's that riff?" asked Cordelia, moving to stand next to Jon and threading her arms around his right arm. Jon almost automatically bent his arm for her to hold on to, and was surprised at the subconscious action...ah Xander again.

"Her memories have been affected," replied Jon. "I remain aware of the full situation thanks to my powers." A chair appeared out of nowhere. "Please, ma'am, for your own comfort use the chair." Jon helped Buffy to the seat by giving her a hand up. Buffy stubbornly refused to look at him, but nevertheless accepted the aid.

"Surely there is someplace we can go," said Buffy, seemingly finding prim lady stubbornness within herself again. "A safe haven."

"Hello? Duh! Didn't you see what Adonis here can do? We're safest with him!" insisted Cordelia. "Dammit, why did she have to get amnesia? Willow didn't."

"She was turned into the best exemplar of who would wear an 18th C dress," explained Jon.

"I don't know what this...amnesia...is, but I'm certain I don't have it. I bathe quite often!"

Jon rolled his eyes. _It's pointless to argue with her_.

"Hello, it's a mental condition, Lady Useless. It has nothing to do with how often you bathe!"

"How dare you?!" gasped Buffy. "I was brought up a proper lady! I wasn't meant to understand things. I'm just meant to look pretty, then someone nice will marry me. Possibly a Baron."

"Ullgghh, I can't believe women acted like this at one stage," Cordelia stared in horrified fascination.

"A woman's most attractive asset is her mind, the rest is just cherries on top," grinned Jon; that was a combination of him and Xander speaking. Cordelia goggled at him for a second then her eyes shined.

"See, that's the attitude to have," she nodded. "Though Sunnydale has slim pickings, the good looking ones are always dumb, and the smart ones are scrawny nerds. Why is that I wonder?"

They were interrupted when the kitchen door opened and a tall, dark haired man walked in wearing dark colors and had that 'cool' look about him that came naturally to some people. He was distracted and staring outside as he spoke.

"Oh good! You guys are alright. It's total...chaos...out...uh, Cordelia what...who's the guy...not wearing..."

"Doctor Manhattan," said Jon.

"Dr Manhattan, this is Angel...uh, he's a 'good' vampire so please don't...blow him up or teleport him away, okay?" Jon merely nodded. "Everyone's turned into their Halloween costumes," Cordelia explained. "The town is filled with monsters, villains, heroes." She gestured to Jon. "This was, um, is Xander."

Angel blinked and was actually rendered speechless. _This...is Xander?_

"Okay," Angel said slowly, feeling his brain struggle to gasp the concept. It was then that he got the sense of sheer _power_ from Xander; it was like...as if he was but a bug in comparison. He could even feel the chained demon _Angelus_ whimper within him.

It was then that the lights in the house abruptly went out. Buffy grabbed onto Cordelia in fright.

"Do you mind?" Her tone was cold and irritated towards the _lady_. Buffy startled away as if her hands had scalded.

"A costumed _temporary _vampire has sneaked into the house behind you," said Jon idly to Angel. "It's waiting to ambush someone behind the basement door in the kitchen."

Angel stared at Jon for a moment then looked at Cordelia questioningly. "Willow said something about the Doc having Clairvoyance as well...better check it out." Angel shook his head but went to check anyway, seeing _Dr Manhattan, _Buffy and Cordelia following at a discreet distance.

In the kitchen, the door was indeed ajar. Angel turned his attention to the basement door. Any doubts about the veracity of Manhattan's 'clairvoyance' vanished as the door burst open and a stereotypically dressed 'Dracula' vampire in an eyeblink charged him down. Angel was a Master Vampire himself, and was able to cope…managing to grab the vampire in a takedown and wrestled him to the floor.

"Some help here!" Angel was struggling to keep the vampire down…it was after all _Dracula_. He had no choice but to pull out his game face to keep the scale of strength roughly even but despite this the costumed vampire was slowly winning. The next thing he knew the vampire had disappeared from under him and he fell down on the tile floor awkwardly.

"Why didn't you do that before the fight?" queried Cordelia.

"If I prevent every fight, every pain, every heartache…that is not growth; that is not life. I do all the work, and you diminish as a result," said Jon solemnly.

"Where's Buffy?" Angel was startled as he got up and saw that she was missing and the front door open.

"She was right there!" moaned Cordelia in exasperation, gesturing to the empty air where Lady Buffy was supposed to be.

"She was frightened by the fight and by Angel when his demonic face was exposed," said Jon idly.

"We gotta find her…" Angel rushed forward and out the door, Cordelia followed dragging Jon slightly by their entwined arms.

"Are you sure she came this way?"

"This is her exact route," replied Jon with a sigh to the ensouled vampire, as they paced along the street a few blocks away from Buffy's home. "She is not exactly fast in her current attire, we will catch up."

"A million bad things could happen to her in the meantime!" snapped Angel.

"She'll be okay," encouraged Cordelia.

"_Buffy_ would be fine, whoever she is now is helpless. C'mon!" He started to run. Jon rolled his eyes and swiftly picked Cordelia up so she rested in his arms. She gave a startled squeak at the action but settled comfortably soon enough as he easily caught up with Angel with a burst of speed.

They finally caught up with Buffy in an alleyway a couple of streets down. She was being pushed against the alley wall by a stereotypical pirate who was leering and chuckling menacingly at her whilst giving sloppy kisses along her neck. The Lady Buffy was clearly not enjoying this and was futilely trying to stave off the big pirate. Jon felt his apathy burned away at this sight in an instant and his body glowed noticeably brighter. He put down Cordelia and with a slashing gesture of his right hand Larry the Pirate was launched off of Buffy as if shot from circus cannon. He smashed into the opposite wall…_hard_, and crumpled into unconsciousness.

"That felt remarkably _satisfying_," Jon said with a grin.

Cordelia rushed forward and helped the frightened and trembling Lady Buffy to her feet. "Are you okay?" Buffy saw Angel and instantly cowered away.

"He's a…he's a vampire!"

"It's okay, really. Angel's a good vampire, he would never hurt you."

"Really?"

"Absolutely, he's our friend," encouraged Cordelia.

Willow appeared sprinting down the alley they were in from the other end. "Guys!" She shouted.

"Willow!" called Angel in alarm.

"Guys, you gotta get out of here."

At the other end of the alley behind her, a whole pack of mini demons and monsters approached, being led by what Jon thought to be a Billy Idol wannabe – the bleach blonde's true nature was apparent at a glance. Master Vampire. He gave a glance at the timeline of the next twenty minutes – _everything would work out, but it was so inconvenient._

Jon sighed and cocked his head at the oncoming pack and with a slight wave of his fingers the whole lot of them vanished, teleported close to the high school a few miles away.

The look on the blonde vampire's face was priceless as he stared back at the space his posse had been in.

"Angel," prompted Jon, the souled vampire had been getting ready to carry Lady Buffy in retreat, but put her back to her own feet. "I believe you have a score to settle with this one, don't you?" Xander's memories of the blonde vampire Spike coming to the fore for Jon's perusal.

Angel only nodded and walked forward gaining an eager look on his face as he settled into a fighting stance opposite Spike. The vampire glanced at the menacing Angel and then to Jon, abruptly decided that retreat was better the part of valor and turned to escape, aiming for a sewer entrance to disappear into.

"Tut, tut," said Jon, shaking his head. Before Spike could so much as take a second running step, he vanished into thin air.

"Where did you send him?" frowned Angel, he had been rather looking forward to beating up Spike. It was a rare occasion for the childe of Drusilla to be caught so off guard and so exposed without backup.

"Straight back into his little lair with Drusilla, he should be laying low for quite a while to come," grinned Jon. "If you would all excuse me, I am needed elsewhere."

Dr Manhattan glowed noticeably brighter and with a blinding flash vanished from the Scoobies' presence.

"Aaaah, I'll miss the view," sighed Cordelia with a dreamy smile.

* * *

Ethan Rayne grinned unrepentantly at his old, old friend.

"What? No hug? Aren't you pleased to see your old mate, Rupert?

Rupert Giles glared at the man he had once considered a friend in their youth and his hands curled into fists. "I'm just surprised I didn't guess it was you. This Halloween stunt stinks of Ethan Rayne."

"Yes, it does, doesn't it? Don't wish to blow my own trumpet, but its genius. The very embodiment of 'be careful what you wish for'." Ethan smirked egotistically.

"It's sick, brutal, and it harms the innocent."

"Oh, and we all know that you are the champion of innocents and all things pure and good, Rupert. It's quite a little act you've got going here, old man."

"It's no act. It's who I am."

"Who you are? The Watcher, sniveling, tweed-clad guardian of the Slayer and her kin? I think not. I know who you are, Rupert, and I know what you're capable of." Ethan got a considering look on his face as surveyed his old friend. "But they don't, do they? They have no idea where you come from."

"Break the spell, Ethan. Then leave this place and never come back," Giles said firmly.

"Why should I? What's in the bargain for me?"

"You get to live."

"Oh, Rupert, you're scaring me."

Giles suddenly advanced on Ethan and delivered a hard punch in the gut with a left, making Ethan double over, and followed up with a right to the face. He continued the beating for a minute, being careful not to endanger his former friend's life – but he let flight with his carefully bottled up anger at the actions of the man below him. Ethan Rayne had cost a young Rupert Giles his innocence. He paused finally to get some breath back, allowing Ethan to curl up into a ball of pain.

"And you said the Ripper was long gone," smirked Ethan despite everything.

Giles grew furious at the use of his old warlock name. "Tell me how to stop the spell."

"Say 'pretty please'."

Giles kicked him hard in the kidney, in response to the taunting and Ethan yelled out in pain.

"That is enough!"

The voice seemed to come from everywhere in the costume shop. Giles glanced around frantically then spotted movement from behind one of the isles. Emerging from it was a blue being that seemed entirely made of energy. His mind absently noticed the tattoo of the hydrogen atom on the forehead, the fact that its shape was a nude human male, and that its eyes seemed to glow intently.

"Ah, I was wondering when you might show up," Ethan winced from the floor.

"I do wonder as to your sanity not to mention common sense, Ethan Rayne," said the being, the voice struck Giles as being familiar. "You knew my abilities would easily be able to spot you."

"Couldn't help myself," laughed Ethan painfully. "The sheer chaos that will result from my summoning you will be magnificent to behold in the future. And I'm a fan of your character."

"I know already what my presence will cause in this Universe," said the being. "I will try my best to ameliorate it."

"Who not to mention _what _are you?" demanded Giles.

"I would be more respectful to him, Ripper, he could squash you like a fly and barely notice it," smirked Ethan.

The being turned to Giles and with a nod said, "I am Doctor Jonathan Osterman, but I prefer to be known as Doctor Manhattan…" this Dr Manhanttan seemed to nod his head, before his whole aspect seemed to change and he grinned in very familiar lopsided manner and said, "Hello, G-Man."

There was only one young man who grinned like that or used that name, "Xander?!"

"Yeah, it's me, the Doc is my alter-ego, weird side effect of the chaos spell summoning the Doc and destabilizing the intrinsic field of my atomic structure – cool, I'm channelling his memories." Giles absorbed that with bafflement. "The bottom line is…" said Xander seeing it, "I have access to a whole host of abilities because of my new state of being, and they are too numerous to get into right now. Suffice it to say, that while I can't be considered physically human anymore, my core personality and soul is still the same old Xander."

"Good Lord," gasped Giles.

"Amazing isn't it," Ethan smiled toothily.

"Tell me how to break the spell," ordered Giles, glaring at the Chaos mage; lifting his foot to ready another kick.

"Breaking the spell won't help me, G-Man," interrupted Xander. "The spell removed the intrinsic field of the atoms of my body – an intrinsic field is oh, to use a comparison…like the shell of an egg, once gone or broken…"

"'…all the king's men couldn't put Humpty back together again,'" laughed Ethan.

Giles dropped his foot and looked at Xander sadly.

"But you can help everyone else in town," smirked the nude teen, "break the statue of Janus, over there. That's what Ethan was about to tell you."

Giles spotted the forgotten and glowing green statue and rushed over to it, grabbed the statue and lifted it over his head to smash it.

He threw the statue hard to the floor, smashing it into tiny pieces. Despite himself, he looked to Xander and saw a brief flickering of his form, as if static was crackling all over him, but just as soon it had disappeared. The teen's eyes were closed and looked as if he was concentrating quite hard. Finally, he gave a sigh and looked at Rupert.

"It's over, everyone, including Miss Summers has reverted to their original selves," said Doc Manhattan, now in control again, his posture and diction now reverted to something Giles thought of as distinctly 'academic'. Giles turned around intent on continuing in releasing some pent up frustration on Ethan Rayne for this stunt, only to find the spot he had held on the floor was empty.

"Dammit, still slippery as an eel, the bugger," muttered Giles under his breath.

"You will meet him again," assured Doc Manhattan, coming to stand next to Giles. Rupert gave the Doc a sidelong glance and opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted. "No, I will not be covering up. The US government in my Universe with all its power could only get me to concede my allegiance and to wear a loin cloth in the bargain. I rather doubt you could do the same."

"And what about Xander?" asked Giles mildly. "What does he think?"

Xander was back in control, he folded his muscled blue arms thoughtfully pretending to think. "Hmm, _no,_ you see Cordelia's reaction to me has erased my fears…and I kinda like having chicks drool…such satisfying revenge for what they do to us men."

"What about school and appearing in public? You would be arrested and…"

"If anyone tried I would simply," Xander waved his hand and all the costumes of the shop vanished, leaving it empty. "I just dumped that right on top of Ethan's head." Giles gaped at the display of power. "I can also alter the wavelengths of light emitted by myself." Xander closed his eyes and there was a slight wavy ripple over his form as there now stood a rather smartly clothed Xander Harris; wearing khaki slacks, leather shoes, and a black shirt with the upper buttons loose – the effect vanished with another ripple and Xander was back to his nude blue form. "Piece of cake, I can even make it selective, that's _if_ I want to blend in. And why should I hide what I am?"

Doc Manhattan returned. "So you see, we are united in purpose and decision, we are one…a blending, despite the fact that we can speak as two separate voices."

Giles nodded in understanding, "If you wish Doctor, I can perhaps look into a magical way of regaining this intrinsic field…"

"It won't work," pronounced Xander immediately, "even if you managed to create intrinsic energy through _magical_ means you have no way to shape it into the correct form; as I doubt one of your hocus pocus litanies could give instructions accurate down to a sub-molecular level."

"Ah, no, if that is what required then I see your point," sighed Rupert, shaking his head. "What are you going to tell the others?"

"The truth," said Xander simply. "They deserve nothing less…Hold on a moment Giles, time is running out…" Giles watched in awe as Xander began to glow visibly brighter and there was a slight flash that blinded the Watcher. When his eyes cleared he stared…and rubbed them again and…no difference.

Where there was one glowing nude Xander, now there stood two…absolutely identical. The first Xander turned to his…copy! and said, "You know what to do." The second Xander nodded with a lopsided grin and began to glow brighter again…then with a flash, vanished.

"W-w-what just happened?" stuttered Rupert in astonishment.

"I created a copy of myself, to handle a critical situation and perhaps solve many future problems…" Xander replied vaguely staring off in the distance. "It will allow me to remain here and handle the fallout of this event."

"Quite," was all Rupert could think to say in reply as they walked out of Ethan's shop and headed towards his old Peugeot. Xander walked up to the passenger side of it and got a wry expression on his face.

"I really think you ought to trade this car in G-Man, it's a rustbucket," the blue teen laid his palm on the hood of the vehicle…a white glow suffused the entire forward section of the rickety car…when it faded the car seemed unchanged, and Xander calmly got in. Rupert got in the driver's side and looked around for any changes…still none…he put the key in the ignition and turned it, and almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of a strong growl of an engine as he pumped the gas.

"What did you do Xander?"

"Nothing much, simply rebuilt the engine and gearbox on a molecular level, it's now as if it just came off the assembly line about fifteen years ago, I also added a few tweaks to optimise performance. I could've made you a modern car, but I'd love to see the look on the DMV clerk's face when you try and explain how your little Peugeot suddenly turned into a Ferrari or Alpha Romeo."

* * *

In an arching angular gold walled corridor, with obsidian black floors, a man is fighting for his life, for his friends, and for his planet. In one hand he holds a Berretta pistol, in the other a highly modified MP5, he wears a black battle dress uniform and backpack, with a hoodie covering his long hair. He first hears the heavy footsteps of his enemy before he sees them, and takes cover in an alcove near the door of the room his friends are in. He is important, he was protecting their backs, and he could not fail. The consequences of failure were something the young man had already seen, and was determined to prevent.

The tall forms of the enemy came into view; armoured in an exotic alloy over the upper body and groin, whilst armoured boots reached up to protect the lower legs and knee joint, a stylized helmet shaped like a serpent's head. It was a combination designed to intimidate less advanced cultures.

The young man brought both weapons to bear and fired. It was clear to see that despite aiming accurately, and killing the two enemies with armour piercing bullets that he was not a real soldier. He handled the weapons awkwardly, and did not stay behind the cover of the alcove properly when firing.

"Jack!" shouted the young man desperately. In his distraction, a single enemy approached from the other corner and loosed a bright orange burst of plasma energy from a weapon the shape of a bulbous staff. It hit the young man square in the shoulder, the kinetic energy flinging him against the wall.

"Arrgghh!" groaned the man, pushing himself painfully to a sitting position, and in his determination, brought his pistol to bear in his right hand and fired three times, killing the enemy that had felled him.

Another man in black emerged from the doorway the young man had been guarding, this one older, with the grizzled air of a veteran soldier, with greying hair, holding his MP5 to scan for enemies before attending to his wounded friend.

"Daniel…Dammit!" cried the veteran, looking at the grievous plasma wound burned in his friend's left shoulder.

"I'm dead anyway, just get outta here!" insisted Daniel, pushing off the veteran from helping him.

"I'm not leaving you here, Daniel," retorted the veteran.

"Get outta here, Jack! You're just gonna blow up with the other ship anyway! What difference does it make? Go! Just go! I'll stay and watch your back." Daniel picked up his pistol again to show that he was more than capable still.

Jack O'Neill stared long and hard at Daniel Jackson, he'd had to do this before, leave a man behind – who couldn't be saved, because the mission came first. Heck, he'd been on both sides of this scenario. And now the stakes were as high as they came – the entire planet, six billion people's freedom from Goa'uld slavery and oppression.

Jack stood and nodded in respect of the man's decision. He had come to secretly like Daniel Jackson, despite his near irritating civilian naivety of looking at things on occasion and his near constant obsession with the past – something that Jack by his nature just viewed as something best left alone. And if anyone had a past like his they would share the same damn opinion. Jack left and walked back into the Bridge of the Goa'uld Mothership to rejoin the others and tell them of their friend's sacrifice – before they transported themselves off the ship.

Daniel Jackson on the other hand was not someone to give up, not even when staring death in the face. He had done so to kill Ra, the first Goa'uld that Humanity in its modern form had encountered. And right now he was crawling across the floor, dragging himself to the reason that he had not died two years ago on the planet Abydos.

The crawl seemed to take forever, through his exhaustion and the pain of his wound; he lost all sense of coherent time. He vaguely knew that there was perhaps only ten minutes left before the Mothership he was currently on was destroyed thanks to some very well placed C4 charges. He thanked God and the Goa'uld sense of self preservation for putting the Healing Sarcophagus on the same deck as the Bridge.

The Goa'uld Sarcophagus was even powerful enough to raise you from the dead.

He stopped however when he could see a strange blue glow reflected off the walls. It was coming from behind him, but he couldn't dare turn around for fear of losing his momentum and succumbing to the pain the manoeuvre would bring. He gasped when he felt something pressed against his wounded shoulder suddenly, the sudden pain of the contact vanished and he….was…beginning to feel…better!

Daniel felt his strength returning and crawled onto his knees, grabbing at the torn BDU to expose the part of his shoulder that showed now nothing but perfectly normal and healthy skin! He whirled around to look for the source of that blue glow, and found himself staring at the glowing blue form of some sort of alien…yet it's…no _his_ appearance was rather human, that of a naked human, and it tickled a feeling that he had seen this before somewhere.

The blue man - who despite being tall, well muscled, had a hint of youth still there – was turned with his back towards Daniel a few feet away and raised a hand down the corridor. Five Jaffa warriors came charging from around a corner but before they could even fire a single blast, their forms seemed to shimmer and then…explode into particles of energy that dissipated into nothingness.

"I have healed you. Follow me, Daniel Jackson," said the blue man and walked back towards the Bridge. Daniel was for a moment, too stunned at the turn of events to do anything. _Who was he? What was he? Did he just kill those Jaffa? _

Daniel realized he wasn't going to get any answers by standing stupidly rooted to the spot and hurried off in the blue man's wake. He caught up within a few seconds.

"Uh, I dunno who you are but this ship is about to blow up…"

"Oh, don't worry about that," said the blue man seemingly unconcerned. They entered the Bridge and the man gave a gesture to the door they had entered and it snapped shut, sealing them off. Daniel's eyes widened in surprise, he realized that he had placed his last charge of C4 in this very room, right behind the main ship control interface. He rushed over and looked under the console and saw…nothing…_it's gone!_

"I took the liberty of moving those charges to the central power core of the other mothership," said the blue man, standing up to the interface and placing his palms onto the crystal pads. "Fascinating technology," he murmured his eyes closed, "though crude in practice and delivery, it's not as efficient as it could be, not by a long shot…the Goa'uld clearly don't even have a proper understanding of it."

"Okay," said Daniel in confusion, but making a note of it, in retrospect it made sense…the Goa'uld were parasitical by nature, meaning they take and use, and could even duplicate stolen technology but that didn't mean they truly understood the principles behind it. He shifted to the matter at hand. "But that still leaves this ship and its crew of thousands of Jaffa to deal with."

"There was a reason I sealed the Bridge," said the blue man, and suddenly the rather beautiful view of Earth that was visible through the forcefield window was replaced with a hologram; that showed a schematic of the pyramidal mothership with giant hull segments attached to give it a vague circular look when view from above. A scrolling red warning flashed in Goa'uld across the screen. Daniel took a moment to read it and stared in horror.

"You're depressurizing the rest of the ship!"

"Yes," said the blue man apathetically. "Believe it or not, it's a pre-programmed subroutine, sort of a failsafe for this…Apophis, in case he ever had to deal with a large scale rebellion among his troops." The man raised an eyebrow at Daniel's seeming objection. "They were about to die in the fiery destruction of this ship, at your hands, I might add. Don't come quibbling about moral ways to die to me."

"Okay, just who are you?" demanded Daniel.

"That's the second time I was asked this question today," mused the blue man. "Hmmm…Alexander, that should do, yes." The hologram flashed a new screen. "Aha, the cycle is complete, no air or life signs detected outside the Bridge." The screen vanished and was replaced with the vista of Earth and the other Goa'uld Mothership not a hundred kilometres away and getting closer.

"Why are we still moving towards the ship about to explode?" asked Daniel lightly.

"So that your friends will still think everything is going according to plan, and get out of that ship," explained the blue…no, Alexander. At sixty kilometres a cocoon of energy flashed over the other mothership before vanishing. "They've managed to bring down the shields of Apophis' ship."

"That's good…right?" asked Daniel uncertainly.

"Oh, sure, this is still a fully functional mothership, I could open up with all its weapons and obliterate the other ship easily – but your friends are still on it."

Finally at twenty kilometres distance two Death Glider fighter craft squirted out of the main launch bay of Apophis' ship.

"Either that's Apophis and his son Klorel escaping or…"

"They would not evacuate by Glider, it has no faster than light capability," Alexander stated, staring down into the controls, "Sensors show a human and Jaffa lifesign in each craft."

"That's definitely them," said Daniel firmly.

"Taking evasive action – shields to full." Alexander shut his eyes and started to glow noticeably brighter.

Daniel watched anxiously and in awe as the mothership he was on pulled away from Apophis's ship faster than he imagined possible for a thing with such huge mass. The other mothership suddenly flashed as if a miniature sun had just come into existence before it died down and exploded in massive brief fireball of energy that radiated an energy shockwave that washed over the shield of Klorel's ship. Thankfully the shields shrugged it off and the whole event barely produced a shudder through the deck plating.

"Where are they?" said Daniel urgently.

"The residual radiation from the explosion has affected sensor efficiency, but they would've definitely been hit by that shockwave, and their craft has no shields. Hmm…where are they…radiation, radiation, more radiation…aha."

"Aha…what?"

"The good news is they're still alive," grinned Alexander.

"And the bad?"

"Their fighters are heavily damaged and they're in a rapidly decaying orbit."

"Can you get them out of there?"

"Certainly," grinned Alexander and brought the mothership closer and matched orbits with the damaged Gliders. "There they are." Daniel squinted and saw the distinct curved shapes of the Goa'uld fighters glistening in the reflected light from Earth. "You better get ready to calm them down."

"What do you…"

Daniel was interrupted when suddenly Alexander flicked his fingers. Out of thin air, Jack O'Neill, Samantha Carter, Teal'C and Bratac appeared and awkwardly landed on their behinds, sending them sprawling to the floor of the Bridge.

"Ooof!" grunted Jack. "What the…hell?"

"Ow…Did we just…that's…huh?" stuttered Sam, looking startled at the sudden change in surroundings. Teal'C and Bratac, merely looked around with wide astonished eyes.

"Hi guys," said Daniel weakly, waving his hand.

"_Da_niel," Jack got to his feet, clearly inviting elaboration, helping Sam up.

"Yeah, uhm, it seems we have a new…acquaintance, this is Alexander," he gestured to the glowing nude being.

"Oh boy," said Sam, trying to avert her eyes yet still stole the occasional glance.

"Please, Captain Carter, don't bother," Alexander shook his head as he piloted the ship to a higher orbit. "I find it irritating when people don't look me in the eye."

"_Da_nielll."

"He says he's responsible for altering your plan to destroy both ships," shrugged Daniel. He saw that Teal'C and Bratac were eyeing the door leading out to the rest of the ship. "And he's vented the rest of the ship to space."

"He can do that?" Jack blinked.

"Yeah, and I think a lot more…I think he healed my wound and he's also the reason you got here from your damaged Gliders. Unless the Goa'uld have remote transporters without using Ring platforms built into these ships."

"No Goa'uld possesses such technology," Bratac affirmed.

"Are you saying he just what…_teleported_ us here _and _healed you, Daniel?" Sam was incredulous.

"It certainly looked that way…"

There was a pop of displaced air a few feet in front of them, and a large mahogany table with five chairs sprang into existence, more pops followed as various buffet menu items started to appear as well.

"Eat," Alexander said nonchalantly, "you must be starving." Daniel had to suppress a laugh; any number of flies could've made a home in Sam's mouth as she gaped at the deliciously stocked table, the smell of which was already making his mouth water. Jack warily approached a dish filled with steaming hot chicken drumsticks and touched it, then grabbed one. "It's not poisoned; I simply liberated it from a _buffet_ restaurant down on the planet."

Jack stared at Daniel and took a bite. "Ah, that is good," he mumbled while chewing. Daniel rushed to a seat and started piling his plate with food. Teal'C and Bratac looked at each other exchanging raised eyebrows and also sat down. Sam was the last to sit, touching the wooden table, the chair, then grabbed a piece of sliced beef and bit into it.

"How?"

"How do you move a finger, or an arm, Captain Carter?" retorted Alexander. "So where do you want me to park Earth's newest acquisition?" he grinned.

Jack started to cough and choke as he hurriedly gulped down the juice that he had just swallowed. "You're kidding?" he spluttered.

"Not at all, Colonel O'Neill. Area 51? McMurdo?"

"51 it is," said Jack, looking like a kid in a candy store. "We got ourselves some big honkin space guns on a big ship, yeah!" he chanted with a pumped fist.

"Why?" asked Daniel suddenly. "Why are you helping us?"

"_Daniiiieeelll_!" Jack suddenly looked forbiddingly at his friend.

"I mean it's obvious you're no friend of the Goa'uld…but it's just that so far, every advanced society we've met has either scorned us as being primitive and told us to go on our way…"

"Let's just say that my race…" Alexander grinned wryly and his solid blue eyes glittered with mischief, "…has a score to settle with them. And helping others in their capacity to fight the Goa'uld is beneficial."

"And your race would be?" Daniel asked.

"Think hard Dr Jackson, you'll figure it out. I've programmed a descent course into the ship, and disabled all the failsafes Apophis had installed. Landing will commence in fifteen minutes. I suggest you alert your superiors. I'll be in touch."

Alexander turned around to face them and began to glow visibly brighter again, and with a bright flash…vanished.

"That was different," blinked Jack.

* * *

Xander stared at his home – or to be more accurate – his former home. He was under no delusions that Anthony and Jessica Harris would accept the fact that their son had been turned by magic into an extremely powerful being of energy; with a preference for _au naturel_ behaviour. A glance into the probability lines of the next twenty minutes was enough to see that only one option remained. Anthony, a self-pitying drunk, who couldn't reason himself out of a wet paper bag would think some sort of monster had invaded his home, and throw beer bottles. Xander's mother would either faint or charge at him with a frying pan…they could not see their son anymore in the glowing body of energy.

Yet, his parents for all their faults…had stayed together, and still loved each other – despite their unhappiness. It boggled Xander's mind that – though the Doc understood love and its power all too well.

He sighed as he willed light to stop reflecting off him, essentially turning him invisible and blind to his normal vision, but he hardly had normal vision anymore.

He moved into the house – it was time.

* * *

She consciously reminded herself for what felt like the hundredth time to not stare. It was very, very difficult. Her inner Slayer and heck, for that matter, she herself had one thought in mind every time she looked at her radically changed Xander-shaped friend – _hot boy, me want_. She would then take to looking away and chanting in her head '_Angel, boyfriend. Angel, boyfriend_.' And then she would catch sight of Xander again – as he was idly running a glowing blue finger along the spines of the books stacked in the shelves of the High School library, and the process would start over again.

A glance at Willow, (now thankfully not a ghost anymore and back in her body and dressed in her typical style sweater and skirt) who seemingly had a permanent blush now whenever she was in Xander's presence – showed that the trainee witch was probably in a similar state. Cordelia, well, Buffy had never seen the Queen of Sunnydale High, so…so…enamoured with anyone. She unabashedly stared at Xander with this absent dreamy smile on her face.

Her thoughts went off on another tangent as she contemplated what she would do to this Ethan Rayne, the next time she met him. Rip off his arms and beat him up with them – introduce him to the inner workings of his own digestive system – that last one had possibilities.

"Uh-uhm," Giles cleared his throat, seeming to snap the three females out of their daze. "Willow, since you seem so knowledgeable about this graphic novel, perhaps you could enlighten me on the powers Xander now possesses."

Ah, good old Giles, acting all Watchery.

Willow released an explosive breath and visibly steeled herself and focused rigidly on the Watcher. "Honestly, Giles, the extent of Doc Manhattan's powers were never even fully shown in the novel. But the list is huge; general control over space and time; regeneration; energy and matter manipulation; flight – though that's just silly, he doesn't really need it; superhuman speed, strength and durability; intangibility; precognition; teleportation of himself and others; self duplication; and he can change his size at will. He also has a genius intellect, or I suppose the Doc aspect has it."

"Don't underestimate me, Willow," said Xander, grinning goofily at her from one of the stacks, a book floating open in front of him. "Yeah, the Doc is super smart; your Xander just never could be bothered with school work, too boring. I suspect that part of my intelligence is geared more towards the spatial and practical – I have a thirty thousand piece ship model that I finished just last month. I hid it from you, and for that I apologize." He snapped his fingers and a rather beautiful and extremely intricate sail ship model with the name 'Bounty' on its stern appeared on the desk of the library they were all seated at.

While Willow gaped at it and try to comprehend and absorb this, Buffy herself tried to get her head around that long list of powers Willow mentioned. Giles had started to clean his glasses vigorously halfway through it and hadn't stopped. Cordelia simply resumed her staring, this time with a gleam in her eye.

But Buffy was struck by one thing at this time. "Giles, what does this mean for us, as in the Scoobies?"

"I-I-I don't k-know Buffy, this situation is completely unprecedented. I mean besides the obvious benefits of having Xander's powers in dealing with the forces of darkness…"

"There's a problem with that G-Man," said Xander, who now had half a dozen open books simultaneously floating in front of him, the pages flapping as if someone was reading them extremely fast. "Sorry, Doc M's learning tendencies are getting to me. Willow, can you explain."

"Xander's right," sighed Willow. "In the Universe where Manhattan comes from, he helped the US win the Vietnam War in three months."

"But isn't that good? I mean, so many people didn't die because he helped," Buffy frowned in puzzlement.

"Yes, that was good by itself, but it had consequences," said Willow, looking troubled. "The easy victory caused US politics to shift towards aggressive and big brother style foreign policy. It also had consequences for the Constitution, it gave President Nixon unheard of support and he successfully repealed the 22nd Amendment – basically meaning that a President can now be elected for more than two terms and in 1985, Nixon was still in the White House."

"Good Lord," said Giles, shaking his head trying and failing to imagine such a United States.

"It was unfortunate," said Xander softly.

"He also had a major effect on the world economy, as Doc Manhattan wanted to stop pollution from destroying Earth's atmosphere, so he synthesized vast amounts of lithium required to make all motorized transportation electric and coupled with nuclear reactors and refined gas power stations, essentially made oil obsolete for the motor industry."

"Oh I bet OPEC, loved that," muttered Giles, looking deep in thought. "So getting back to us, even though Xander could literally wipe out every vampire and _evil _demon on the planet, there is no way to predict if the knock on effects would be desirable."

"Oh, there's a way," disagreed Willow, glancing at Xander and like clockwork, blushing again. "Xander is experiencing time in a non-linear fashion, he can tell us possible futures, but the sheer act of knowing it, will change that future."

"The future is determined by the character of those who shape it," muttered Xander absently.

"So does all that mean Xander is going to help or not? Because if he doesn't just because we're afraid of the effects…then I might as well not go out and slay, because that one vampire I didn't kill would have a snack on a guy who would invent a new light bulb or change everyones…"

"I did not imply that I would do _nothing_, Buffy," said Xander, now turning to face them squarely, causing Cordelia to sigh in appreciation. "I merely said that there would be a problem using my powers to their full extent…and that we should be prepared for the worst. The Chaos Mage wants what his name implies. Anyway…"

They were interrupted when suddenly another glowing Xander appeared from the other side of the stacks and unflinchingly walked into the first Xander and was gone.

"Ah, your duplicate has returned I see," commented Giles.

Xander nodded and stared upward for a moment before grinning. "Yes, I needed to attend to a problem. Hopefully, with this windfall they can focus on the more important job." He turned back to floating books and began reading.

"What job? And who is they?"

"There are battles beyond to be fought for the survival of the human race, Buffy, not just in Sunnydale."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Xander stood across the street (out of phase so no could see him) from one of the largest warehouses in Sunnydale; watching the bustling activity as trucks delivered various lab equipment and supplies he had purchased. It was quite amazing what five synthesized bricks of gold could accomplish. Not only had he gotten the land, the football field long and three storey high warehouse, and all the lab stuff, but he also had a healthy amount left over for investing.

He currently had a copy of himself suitably disguised and signing for all the equipment and directing the workers to place the equipment where he wanted it. It was the weirdest feeling; the copy of himself, wasn't so much a separate entity as it was a part of him, he was getting all the sensory input from it/him as if he was the one standing there talking to the foreman.

Speaking of which…

* * *

Xander (also out of phase) stood at the base of a girded ramp that led up directly into the perfectly round maw of an obsidian black metal ring about twenty four feet in diameter. The nine chevrons perfectly equidistant from each other, the four superconductors clamped onto it, providing the massive power that the circular device required.

'_So this is the Stargate'_ he thought. It was an amazing piece of technology; he itched to disassemble the thing and study its inner workings, but he doubted that would draw a favourable reaction from many military personnel in this secret complex. He was in the seventeen extra floors below NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain Complex here in Colorado Springs, which nobody but a select few knew existed, let alone what was done in its bowels.

Interestingly enough, the Stargate was at the bottom of the old ICBM missile testing silo; it was quite fitting in a way; that the device and the institution which he could see transforming and securing the future of humanity in this Galaxy would be located in a place which was technically part of the madness of Mutually Assured Destruction, if a Nuclear War ever took place.

He calmly walked out of the large room, and headed out of the open blast door, up the stairs and into the Control room which looked down upon the Stargate. It was filled with banks of computers mainframes, controls, communications, power governors and the large transparent map of the Galaxy mounted on wheeled stilts. The place was bustling with technicians and various Air Force personnel. He walked over to what he guessed to be the main control computer which interfaced directly with the Stargate, behind which an Air Force Sergeant was sitting, and placed his glowing blue hand on it.

It was amazing how through sheer ingenuity and trial and error they had managed to create a control interface for a device as complex as the Stargate. The library of Gate addresses was also very interesting; there were thousands of them – all worlds with Stargates on them. And all of them were literally just a step away with the Gate.

He finished absorbing the data and walked up the steep spiral staircase that led directly into a large room that had the feel of a Conference or Briefing Room, with a large mahogany table that was surrounded with rather comfortable high backed office chairs…all of which were mostly occupied, by the team known as SG1 – Colonel Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, and the Jaffa, Teal'C. Captain Samantha Carter seemed absent for some reason, and it was her absence that was the discussion of the table. A portly balding Major General Hammond sat at the head of the table, was conducting the briefing, along with a rather attractive woman in white overcoat and an Air force uniform – whose disposition screamed 'Doctor' with the nametag 'Frasier'.

"I didn't know. I wasn't sure until I saw her lose it down there. Cassie was the one who suspected." O'Neill was addressing the General at the moment Xander had walked in.

"Cassandra still has traces of naquadah in her blood. I think there may be some connection - a reaction that made her sense the Goa'uld." Doctor Frasier posited worriedly.

"How in the world did it get into Captain Carter?" General Hammond asked with equal parts consternation and concern. _Oh-oh_, thought Xander, taking a glance into the timeline and probability lines.

"Sir, I don't know what to say. I examined Captain Carter myself, there were no visible signs of entry. I mean, she had a small abrasion on the back of her throat, but it could have been anything!" Frasier exclaimed in exasperation.

"Are you saying it entered through her mouth?" General Hammond said incredulously.

"The parasite's goal is to attach itself to the brain stem. The soft tissue at the back of the throat is as good a place as any to start."

"Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. Oh my God, she was giving some guy on that planet mouth to mouth. There was blood but she said the guy just bit his tongue before he died," realized O'Neill, shaking his head in self-recrimination.

"If a Goa'uld can infest a human with no detectable physical signs, then we're gonna have to start giving all personnel who go through the 'gate an ultrasound or an MRI." Frasier sighed shaking her head at all the extra hours that would require of her staff.

"Well for now let's make sure we haven't let any more Goa'ulds through the 'gate this time," General Hammond said firmly.

"What would a Goa'uld be doing in a Nasyian man in the first place? I mean, we certainly didn't notice any of them acting Goa'uld-ish," Jackson frowned looking at the others as if asking them if they had noticed anyone acting possessed by an alien parasite and had failed to mention it.

"Maybe it was a setup, trying to get a spy into one of us," O'Neill shrugged.

"It is possible the Goa'uld within Captain Carter has already placed a device of destruction on this base," rumbled Teal'C stoically. _Damn, does this guy keep a lid on his emotions or what_, thought Xander in bemusement.

"If there's any tampering here, I want it found. Teal'c, I'd like you to help. You know better than anyone what to look for," General Hammond half requested/ordered of the Jaffa.

"Oh, what are we going to do about Sam?" Jackson asked in concern.

"We're gonna get that damn thing out of her is what we're gonna do!" O'Neill said firmly.

"Well that didn't really work with Kawalsky. And if any of those NID guys like Colonel Maybourne find out about this, then..."

"Well they're not going to! Right, General?" O'Neill looked expectantly at his superior officer.

"Agreed. I'm not giving up on Captain Carter either. But until someone presents me with a viable option, I'm putting you in charge of interrogating the prisoner."

"Due respect Sir, I don't think that thing in her head's going to tell me anything," O'Neill shook his head.

"Colonel, we need to know what that Goa'uld's doing here."

"Yes sir."

The meeting broke up from there and feeling his interest piqued, Xander accompanied O'Neill and Teal'C as they navigated through the labyrinth of rounded concrete corridors with exposed coloured piping and lines marked on the floor to help those with a poor sense of direction (not that there were many of those in the military) to get where they were going. They took an elevator ride up to sublevel nineteen and entered an area even more fortified and sturdy than the rest of the base Xander had seen, the doors marked 'Brig' gave a good clue that this was where Captain Carter was being kept.

After both men signed in to proceed into the area (Xander just walked through the security post), they approached a non-descript door just down the hall.

"This is difficult," Teal'C said suddenly, as both men paused outside the door.

"Yeah. Yeah, it is." O'Neill agreed with a sigh.

"I have accompanied you to give you this advice Colonel O'Neill. Assault the Goa'uld's ego. Make him appear foolish. He may then reveal the things you wish to learn simply to make himself appear more powerful." Teal'C suggested.

"Ah come on Teal'c. They're smarter than that." Jack shook his head.

"I have seen many Goa'uld strategies revealed and certain victories lost because of Goa'uld arrogance. It is the Goa'uld's greatest weakness," explained the former First Prime or General of the Goa'uld Apophis's army. _Now there is food for thought, _Xander made a mental note of that.

"Yeah," agreed O'Neill, sighing and swiping his card in the reader next to the door.

"Colonel O'Neill. When you speak to her, do not see your friend," Teal'C said strongly.

"How do you do that?" the Colonel asked rhetorically and entered the room, whilst Teal'C left to aid in the sweep of the base. Xander walked in behind O'Neill into a large darkened area, with one half of the room barred off with a thick metal cage. In addition, lasers beamed along each bar – clearly to let them know if the prisoner inside ever touched the bars. Xander suspected it was a design which was catered to someone with the ability to bend those bars – which the Goa'uld clearly had.

In the back of the cell, stood Captain Carter like a solid statue, her arms folded and a hard expression on her face and in her grey-blue eyes that was…odd, and did not feel like it belonged on a woman with such a beautiful face. She wore her regulation BDU trousers, boots and a black shirt, but had been divested of everything else.

"So, you and I have got to have a little talk." O'Neill began with a smug grin. "You really screwed up here you know. I mean, you really blew it."

Captain Carter or the symbiote within simply sneered at the attempt, and replied, "You are weak." Her voice was distorted with a deep tone for some reason – _ah, the symbiote presence in the neck pushes on the larynx and voice box, and changes the sounds produced_.

"Who's behind bars right now?" O'Neill grinned.

"Your tactics will not work on me." The symbiote replied and Xander had the feeling that she was right…it wouldn't work. He took a glance into the timeline, focusing on specific points in the month ahead until he found a period six months into the future that dealt with this specific problem…_ah ha_.

"Not buying it, huh?" The Colonel looked rueful.

"You must let me go." The tone was insistent, yet there was also a hint of plea in it.

"Ah, no."

"You really have no idea why this is happening," Carter with a symbiote shook her head.

"And I guess you don't feel like telling me." O'Neill mused to himself.

"Let me go through the Stargate. I will find another host and send your friend back to you."

"You can do that? Leave a host without killing them?"

"Yes. It is possible, but not easy. I could die, but I promise I will try." _Hmm, looks like this one is batting true to form_, thought Xander. _Remarkably selfless, but O'Neill won't or can't see it_, as he proved with his reply.

"The Nasyian man died when you left him."

"The Nasyian man died first, that is why I left him. He was beyond my natural abilities to heal," countered the symbiote in Carter.

"What were you doing in him in the first place?" O'Neill probed curiously.

"Carter's mind would be intact. She would return to you as you knew her before," said the symbiote ignoring the Colonel's question, like any captured spy would.

"You know I can't trust you."

"I could have killed you and many others when you stopped me from going through the Stargate." Carter's face was sardonic as she said this.

"You didn't want to die yourself," countered the Colonel.

"It would not have killed me. I am too valuable," disagreed the symbiote.

"Which is exactly why we'll never let you go."

"I have done nothing to harm you. But you would not let me go even if you did believe me." Captain Carter's demeanour suddenly shifted, gone was the hard expression and suddenly her voice returned to a rich normal sound and her face was pleading and desperate, "Oh God, she's telling you the truth! Please, Jack, no Jack, please, don't leave me, please, give me a chance! Don't leave me like this! Please!" But O'Neill was leaving, clearly unable to take what he saw as manipulation of the Goa'uld on his friendship with the Captain. Xander remained behind and watched as Carter's demeanour changed yet again…it was fascinating, he could actually sense the back and forth see-saw of neural control going on with Carter's body. It _had_ actually been the real Captain Carter pleading with O'Neill. "What will it take?" The symbiote angrily said.

"Cooperation and a little trust, at the very least," said Xander, allowing himself to appear only to Captain Carter's senses. "We do after all; have the same enemies and the same goal." Carter rocked back in surprise at his sudden appearance.

"What…who…are you?" Carter stared at his twinkly nude blue form with bafflement and wonder.

"Funny, you're sharing Carter's head, you should know that already," Xander probed deeper with his senses. "Ah, you've been keeping her suppressed somewhat, you're having trouble keeping up with Carter's will. No matter, my name is Alexander. This is my world and I protect it."

"Of what race are you?" the symbiote shook her head.

"Evolution is a concept not unknown to you; I am merely the next stage of Tau'ri. My kind is somewhat earlier than expected through a fluke of events, but I'm here now, and must make do."

"Hok'taur," mused the symbiote in amazement.

"Nothing so limited, but it's the best word in Goa'uld for me, I suppose," shrugged Xander. "So, Jolinar of Malkshur of the Tok'ra, what will it be? You're being hunted and I can sense the hunter…"

"How can you know my name?" gasped Jolinar.

"Does it really matter at this point? Let's chalk it down as just me being a Hok'taur and leave it at that." Xander sighed in frustration. "The hunter has followed you to this planet…as you were hiding among the Nasyian, so was he." Jolinar's eyes widened momentarily at that statement and she looked down in deep thought. "If you continue like this, he will find you and easily corner you here, at which point you will die and the information you have will be lost to the Tok'ra…your statement to O'Neill 'I am too valuable', gave you away."

"If what you say is true, then I must leave immediately," Jolinar said darkly.

"You cannot leave; you can only do so to bring a message of trust and possible alliance back to the Tok'ra from my world. As of this moment, you are under my protection Jolinar of Malkshur." Xander said and disappeared to her senses again.

He watched her as she tried to make sense of the encounter, pondering his words. Meanwhile, Xander busied himself with an in depth probe of the Tok'ra symbiote physiology, by walking into the cell and looking closely at it down to a cellular level – and then even going to the sub-atomic level.

An hour or so later, she seemed to come to a decision and shouted for the guard. She asked to speak to the Jaffa she had seen in Tau'ri clothing. The burly military SF guard merely nodded in comprehension and left. Twenty minutes later, Teal'C entered the room.

"You have requested my presence?" Teal'C's arms were folded formally behind him, yet it was clear he had his 'dealing with the enemy' mask on.

"Jaffa, you must convince the humans to let me go."

"They will not let you go."

"They are impressive. The Tau'ri have become very powerful in the time since the Goa'uld reign here. Certainly the System Lords will not allow this to go unchecked. I can provide the humans with information that can help them defend against attack," Jolinar offered.

"They are more powerful than you know. Already a Goa'uld attack on Earth has been thwarted."

"Indeed," said Jolinar looking thoughtful and stared at the spot where Xander had appeared to her, "but then a more powerful assault is already being planned."

"They are not fools. They believe you are here to plant a seed of that destruction." Teal'C's tone was biting.

"Not all Goa'uld are the same. There are a few that oppose the System Lords and their ways. You must have heard of the Tok'ra."

"Every Goa'uld seeks power for his own reason and would betray his own brother to achieve it," countered Teal'C, beginning to show anger.

"Some seek power for a greater purpose. Not every Goa'uld is an enemy to the people of this planet. The Tok'ra are real, no matter what Apophis has told you."

"I have yet to meet one."

"You have now. I am Jolinar of Malkshur."

Teal'C's eyes grew bigger subtly and he turned to abruptly walk out. "Wait; there is one among you I suspect you know, he believes me." Teal'C paused at the door turning around, waiting. "He is the Hok'taur Alexander." The Jaffa whirled around fully to face Jolinar.

"You are merely using Captain Carter's memories of the Hok'taur Alexander," Teal'C shook his head.

"She's not, Teal'C," Xander said appearing to both their senses, as he stood on the side of the room. "Good to see you again. And good to see you figured it out." Teal'C whirled in surprise at his entrance, settling into an instinctual combat stance before recognizing there was no threat and relaxing, though he was still on guard.

"It was DanielJackson who deduced what you are," Teal'C shook his head, "they are all rather perplexed at your presence."

"I know, I was there, although invisible, when Doctor Jackson found the graphic novel, it took him longer that I expected. I really should have removed the tattoo," Xander chuckled pointing to his forehead with the representation of the Hydrogen atom on it. "But there are factors involved in why I keep it, which are for another time."

"I have read what you are capable of, Alexander," nodded Teal'C getting back to business, and looked at Jolinar. "Does she speak the truth?"

"Yes," Xander said simply.

"I can see no lie either, I will report that you vouched for her as well," Teal'C nodded and walked out.

"What was that about?" Jolinar asked.

"You would know if you allow for a full blending to occur, but since you won't I'll tell you that it doesn't matter to immediate issues."

* * *

**Sunnydale, California**

Xander stood in the middle of his newly acquired warehouse turned lab, surrounded by boxes upon boxes and numerous crates of equipment and machinery. He held out his arms parallel to the ground and abruptly everything rose into the air and began to unpack itself before flying with speed to its assigned place. In a mere two minutes everything was complete, and he began to go to each machine and altered it with a combination of what he had absorbed from the databanks of the Goa'uld Ha'tak, tech from the Watchmen Universe, and a few other fictional Universes that he knew of – control of space and time came in handy sometimes and having a genius atomic physicist in your head helped too. It took most of the day, but it was rewarding for the Doctor Manhattan aspect.

When he was done, he had a lab that would have any scientist or engineer practically salivating if they were to ever enter it.

He grinned in satisfaction…it was time to get to work.

* * *

**SGC Brig, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado**

Xander was bemused as O'Neill and Teal'C returned to the cell – the Colonel squinted around as if it would somehow help him to see the out of phase Xander. He let himself appear to the senses of the SGC's 2IC and laughed.

"Yikes," jumped the Colonel, wincing as he stared at Xander. "You're never gonna drop the naturist act are ya?"

"It's not an act, Colonel O'Neill," Xander's glowing eyes narrowed at the man. "It's a trapping that is pointless to me, as it serves no practical purpose anymore."

"Yeah, guess so," shrugged O'Neill. "How come we can't see you on the monitors?" He pointed to the cameras in the various corners of the room.

"Because I'm keeping it from seeing me, it's really not that complicated a process."

"Right, okey dokey, so you're saying you trust her?" he pointed to Jolinar.

"She is who she says she is," Xander said. "The Tok'ra are essentially a subset of symbiote species, Colonel. Think of them as the law abiding American citizens in comparison to the Goa'uld's death row inmates in a Federal penitentiary. They take humans who are about to die. Who choose to continue to live and co-exist with the symbiote, both sharing consciousness equally. Now, obviously, circumstances forced Jolinar to take Captain Carter, but as you've heard she's willing to leave."

"Oh," said O'Neill blinking as he tried to comprehend that and stared at Jolinar.

"I have heard of them as well," said Teal'C, "There is an old legend among the Jaffa that speaks of a group of Goa'uld who opposed the ways of the System Lords. This group is called the Tok'ra. This symbiote, Jolinar of Malkshur, claims to be part of that group."

"Are you both sure?" O'Neill asked firmly.

"Unfortunately, we do not carry any identification," Jolinar replied dryly, since no Tok'ra would dare carry any form of token or ID that could perhaps be lost and betray them.

"Okay," O'Neill sighed heavily. "Let's try to build a little trust here, shall we? One of the Nasyians we brought back was very badly burned. But somehow he just got up out of his hospital bed and disappeared. Who is he?"

"It must be the Ashrak," Jolinar replied looking worried.

"It means hunter," replied Teal'C to O'Neill's querying stare.

"A Goa'uld?"

"Yes. An assassin of the highest rank who carries out the orders of the System Lords," explained Jolinar.

"Who's he here to kill?"

"Me," the Tok'ra said simply. O'Neill turned his stare to Xander. "Do you know what this assassin looks like?"

"Yes, but I wish to save the Nasyian who is being possessed by the Ash'rak, and I don't have to tell you how valuable a live Goa'uld is in terms of research; so we will allow him to penetrate this base."

"Wait a sec," frowned O'Neill, "you can remove the Goa'uld, without killing the host?"

"Most certainly, precision remote teleportation," shrugged Xander.

* * *

**Sunnydale**

If anyone was to walk into one of the very large cemeteries the town had, they would spot an odd sight. A petite blonde haired girl who couldn't weight more than a hundred pounds soaking wet, was moving with blurring speeds and fighting against a man easily twice her mass. The man was not a man, however. He had enlarged canines and a distorted face – a vampire. Reason dictated this was hardly a fair contest, but the girl in her mid-teens was easily defeating the guy; blocking his relatively clumsy haymakers, kicks and strikes with ease, and delivering strikes back that sent the vampire reeling.

Your ordinary John or Jane Doe off the street would be alarmed at the sight, not able to comprehend what was going on, but even those who walked in the world of the 'supernatural' and knew all about it would find the sight utterly bizarre; mainly, because of the glowing blue, human shaped being floating a few feet off the ground with his legs crossed and a book hovering open in front of him, watching the battle with idle interest. There were also five more vampires hovering in the air, orbiting the scene at a height of four meters – all struggling and flailing – it looked almost like they were trapped in zero G.

"Look outward Buffy," advised Xander. "Your power comes from all around you. You are merely a conduit for it."

Buffy avoided a roundhouse, got under the vampires' guard and a strike to its midsection sent it practically flying and demolishing several gravestones as it spent its resultant momentum.

"Damn," blinked Buffy in amazement. Ever since she had been called as the Slayer, her strength, speed and reflexes had increased well beyond normal human levels, now with the techniques Xander had been teaching her it felt like she was on whole different level altogether. And what was further astonishing was that they were so simple in retrospect. This was only her third 'lesson' with Xander; she struggled to imagine what she could achieve after a year.

She ruefully remembered her first lesson from Xander. He had been rather abrupt starting them in the first place, approaching Giles and stating that she needed to be 'honed' properly for the future ahead. He had said that the amount of lives that will be lost because of events that wouldn't have happened if she had been 'properly trained' in not only her Slayer gifts, but also in martial arts and tactics was 'unacceptable'. Sure Giles found that a bit insulting at first, but quickly began to see Xander's point when he proceeded to give a demonstration. A spar between Xander and herself; in which he said that he would only use a 'vampire' level of strength and the various martial arts Dr Osterman knew from the Watchmen Universe – since all of the Watchmen had been prolific martial artists.

Her defeat that followed had been an eye-opener. After all, what was to stop Spike from turning a human martial artist and sending it to attack?

"Excellent," Xander nodded with a grin. "You seem to have gotten the hang of it, and we only needed to go through three vampires." He pointed a finger at the insensate vampire struggling to get up from the wreckage of a tombstone; a beam of white light lanced forward and hit the vampire…instantly causing it break down into ashes. He raised his palm to the orbiting vamps and a wide burst of white solar radiation shot upward and caused a brief rain of ashes and dust.

Buffy brushed the ashes off her and stared at Xander as he floated to the ground to stand on his own feet – she still found the nudity distracting, but was slowly becoming used to it. "I would be careful of Billy Fordham, Buffy," he said suddenly with a distracted air, staring to the east with a grin on his face.

"What? Why?" she blinked. The reappearance of her old crush from Hemery Primary School in LA had been a welcome distraction from the troubling thoughts of Angel possibly cheating on her with that woman she had seen the other day during a patrol.

"I sense that he feels only desperation when he is in your presence," explained Xander turning to face her. "And it's not the 'I wanna do the mattress mumbo with ya' type."

"Xander!" Buffy complained at his crassness, slapping his shoulder and feeling a pleasant electric tingling from the contact. Despite this, she was glad of the comment, it proved that the Xander she knew was still there.

"Take it seriously Buffy," Xander said, suddenly speaking with his what she termed 'Doctor Osterman' voice. "Do not ignore anything that looks odd, or sets your instincts off, nothing is coincidence…everything's connected."

"Okay," she nodded taking the instruction to heart, as they headed out of the cemetery.

* * *

**SGC Brig, Cheyenne Mountain**

The Ash'rak regarded the weapon he had taken off the human standing guard outside the holding area where they had kept his target. Its construction was intricate, but was still based off ballistics; most Goa'uld would sneer at it and dismiss it as primitive, and beneath them. The Ash'rak knew better, his skill as an assassin was beyond using ranged weapons, but he knew their advantages. No staff weapon could fire with lethality at the ranges this weapon did.

He strode into the darkened room beyond and dropped the ballistic weapon; he had what he needed to do his job already. He could sense the traitor Tok'ra within the woman waiting behind the cell doors.

"Interesting weapons these humans use," he said mostly to himself. He walked over to the door in the crude bar cage and with a pull of his enhanced strength it opened seemingly effortlessly, snapping the lock in the process. He observed his target with confusion as he readied the small ring-like Hara-kesh weapon on his hand. She was not grave or cowering, but giving him a satisfied smirk. "Kree shak, Jolinar. By decree of the Goa'uld System Lords you will die with dishonour by the power of the Hara'kash." He raised the weapon, its triangular emitters powering up with a form of radiation that was kept highly secret, because it was deadly to any symbiote directly exposed to it.

"Hear this. The days of the Goa'uld System Lords are numbered," Jolinar said with narrowed eyes.

The next thing the Ash'rak knew was that he was flying through the air with great speed and slammed against the hard concrete walls; and then he tumbled forward, suddenly in apparent zero gravity and flailed in mid-air to no effect at all. His only weapon also decided to zoom off his fingers and disappear into the darkness of the room. The smug expression of the Tok'ra standing looking up at him was the last thing he saw as the darkness of unconsciousness claimed him.

8888888

Xander brought the Ash'rak to rest on the floor, before giving a flick of his fingers. A ten litre tank of hydrodynamic nutrient fluid mounted on a wheeled trolley appeared next to him. Next he focused all his concentration on cataloguing every molecule of the Goa'uld within the Nasyian man dressed in Air Force BDUs. After fifteen seconds he again gave another snap of his fingers and abruptly a large Goa'uld parasite materialized in the tank; its tiny crystalline eyes flashing suddenly and its long snake like body quivering in fear as it realized that it was suddenly out of its host.

He looked around and saw that Jolinar was smirking at the sight of the fearful Goa'uld squirming in its tank.

"It's not so nice when you are the one in the stasis tank, is it?" spat Jolinar with contempt at the Ash'rak, even though it couldn't possibly understand her at the moment.

O'Neill and Teal'C arrived with those coiling s-shaped Zat'nika'tel weapons in hand and lowered them when they saw the unconscious Nasyian and the disembodied Goa'uld.

"Nice," grinned O'Neill, and briefly talked into a hand radio, summoning a medical team. When the Nasyian was put on a gurney and wheeled off, he stalked up to the tank, tapping on it, causing the Goa'uld within to startle. "Not so all powerful now, are ya?" he grinned.

Xander gave a gesture as he teleported the tank to his lab in Sunnydale, where another copy of him would start research on the Goa'uld physiology.

"Aaaahh," moaned O'Neill.

"The SGC is getting a good deal in return Colonel, don't complain," Xander said with a grin.

"Speaking of which, when is it gonna happen?" O'Neill grinned rubbing his hands together.

"When I leave this room."

888888888

Xander stood for the first time openly in the SGC's main briefing room, looking over the Stargate. It was probably the only place that had a good 'view' in the entire base. The only person with him in the room was General Hammond, looking anxious and concerned. The former was mostly because of not knowing what Xander had done to his base, and the latter was due to Captain Carter's welfare. Xander thought that Hammond was an excellent flag officer in the overall scheme of things; he had sat in on a number of the man's briefings and could instantly tell that he hadn't left his common sense and humanity behind when putting on his General's uniform. Looking into the timeline only reaffirmed that fact.

"I don't much like your idea, Alexander," the General said finally.

"It's an excellent solution to Captain Carter's and by extension, Jolinar's problem."

"I doubt there's anybody with clearance willing to host an alien symbiote – even if they are suffering from a terminal illness that can be cured by the Tok'ra," Hammond shook his head. "They will still paint the Tok'ra with the same brush as they do the Goa'uld."

"Then look for someone in the military without clearance, who can go into the situation with fresh eyes. The fact of the matter is, General, that while I can even the playing field between you and the Goa'uld, and defend Earth if it should come down to a conventional attack from space, in terms of off-world intel, you are relatively blind to the Galaxy. That is where the Tok'ra can help us and themselves with an alliance. Their biggest problem is finding hosts without Goa'uld interference, and how many people suffering from terminal illness on the planet are there?"

General Hammond nodded at Xander's point, and looked at his watch in irritation. "They're ten minutes late."

"Give them a break, General, they're just trying to tear themselves away from exploring the improvements I made, they should be arriving in fifty seconds."

And exactly fifty seconds later, Colonel O'Neill, Teal'C, Daniel Jackson, Janet Frasier and in lieu of Captain Carter's dilemma, Dr Lee, the short and wild haired co-chief of R&D at the SGC arrived; all seemed to have come down with slight case of shock – even Teal'C. Dr's Frasier and Lee's eyes fixed on Xander's glowing, perfect nude physique and their mouths gaped open stupidly.

Xander winced at the deluge of thoughts suddenly in the room. Not so much their volume but at their content. Both Lee and Frasier had an obvious scientific interest in wanting to study him.

"Have a seat people!" barked Hammond, his command voice broke through the fog and everyone sat down. "Now, I want a report of what Alexander has done to 'aid' us. Colonel, since you seem like have lost the ability to sit still, we will start with you."

O'Neill winced and stilled his excitement. "Uh, Sir, it seems that the entire SGC armoury has been converted into something straight out of Star Wars. Our standard stuff is still there but there are also racks of what is called…" he stared at notepad briefly in his hand. "MGRG Mark 1. MR1 for short. Essentially Sir, it's an assault rifle sized rail gun."

"Rail gun?" Hammond looked startled. "The smallest one I've ever seen was mounted on a battleship. And we were looking at it as an offensive weapon for the Starship program…"

"It uses highly powerful electromagnetism and an inertial field to accelerate a 5mm projectile to speeds in excess of Mach 10 and can carry two hundred rounds in a single magazine. Smart targeting also allows for shots at ranges only seen on a sniper rifle." Xander grinned at the stunned looks in the room.

O'Neill nodded. "What he said…" pointing at Xander. "Though why couldn't we have gotten ray guns?"

"Energy weaponry, while advanced and useful on ship-to-ship scale, is more disadvantageous in a man portable weapon."

O'Neill sighed in regret and turned back to Hammond. "Sir, we also found odd armour that looks like Imperial Storm Trooper gear, but has a different shape, the helmets look different, and they also have an internal HUD that links up with the MR1 and give you a whole whack of readings like life signs, sensors, and night vision. There are also these flexible undersuits for the amour that we think is air tight, I bet we could even fight in hard vacuum with this stuff on."

"It is the armour that was used in the Clone Wars by the Galactic Republic, General Hammond," Teal'C said stoically, though his eyes twinkled. Mostly everyone in the room knew of the Jaffa's fondness for the Star Wars universe.

"Hey, I'm a fan," Xander chuckled, as everyone looked pointedly at him for an explanation.

"Could we maintain the weapons and the armour?" General Hammond looked to Dr Lee.

"Yes," nodded the scientist. "It will take a bit of doing to get production of spare parts going but since Alexander also gave us the technical manual and blueprints I foresee no problem. Reloading the weapons in theory shouldn't be a problem either, since it's merely a question of recharging the power cells of the weapon and creating proper sized projectiles." Dr Lee pushed up his large glasses and continued. "As for the armour, it's a smart composite ceramic that we should be able to duplicate with no problems either, it's rather ingenious."

"Good, Dr Frasier?" Hammond turned to the SGC Chief of Medicine.

"Well, Sir, all of my standard equipment is still there, but one my empty wards have been completely converted. It's filled with over twenty vertical tubes that seem to contain a fluid that I'm still running tests on, but it's the same thing we saw Luke Skywalker recover in when he was suffering from frostbite on Hoth."

"Bacta tanks," supplied Teal'C.

"Not Bacta precisely," Xander shook his head. "Bacta has raw ingredients that don't exist in this Universe – so there's no hope to maintain them. Instead they are filled with a fluid that excites natural healing by a factor of a thousand percent. You will find the biochemistry information related to it in your computer, Dr Frasier."

Frasier boggled at that for a moment before clearing her throat and continuing, "General there are also other equipment that I have yet to catalogue, but at a glance we have medical scanners that make MRIs look crude, facilities for near perfect artificial limb creation and lots more. I'd go so far as to say that we have the most advanced medical facility on the planet if not most of the Galaxy now."

"Doctor Jackson?"

"My office hasn't changed much, but what I did get is quite significant. There are four or five types of scanners interfaced with my computer that I'm gonna have the science department look at, but I can probably do artefact dating and general analysis in seconds now, instead of waiting days for carbon dating results and other traditional lab tests. The artefact storage room also has similar scanners installed as well, but on a larger scale."

"Dr Lee, what do you have to report?"

"Umm, well, General," Dr Lee looked nervously at Xander, to which he only grinned knowingly in reply. "I don't want to alarm anyone but currently the base is running completely on its own internal power supply and we're cut off from the Colorado grid."

General Hammond looked in askance to the Doctor then at the overhead lights. "How can that be, Doctor, the lights are at full luminescence?"

"General, the base's nuclear reactor and the power vault has been replaced completely by…" Dr Lee gulped and stared at Xander again. "The main engine room of the USS Defiant, Sir."

"What?!" barked Hammond incredulously.

"Sir, it's a Matter/Anti-Matter Reactor assembly and control systems from the USS Defiant, to be specific the Deep Space Nine version of the ship. It's currently producing enough energy to power the entire North American continent easily."

"How the heck are we gonna maintain something that advanced?!" O'Neill said in astonishment. "Are there dilithium crystals inside the thing?"

"No, that's what's amazing," said Dr Lee, turning to Xander.

"Again, dilithium in the manner it's seen and used in Star Trek is completely fictional," Xander said. "Instead of that, I merely used a specialized form of graviton emitter that keeps the antimatter channelled and isolated. The reaction chamber is in pure vacuum."

"What about generating Anti-matter itself? There's currently only enough anti-deuterium for three months," Dr Lee queried.

"That I will do myself," Xander said and turned to face the group. "Consider it my insurance that will keep your superiors honest and fair, I realize that _you_ are all quality folks, but I can't say the same for those NID assholes. In fact, I think the planet would be far better off without them. I can see them causing numerous blunders in the future, the least of which is allowing the Goa'uld to infiltrate their ranks." He suddenly snapped his fingers.

"What did you just do?" General Hammond sat back with a sudden weary sigh and shook his head.

"Let's just say that every single digital cent of government money allocated to NID operations in past year and coming year has found itself going instead to various charities around the world."

"You just bankrupted the NID?!" O'Neill looked astonished and like Christmas had come early.

"Indeed, it's after all just ones and zeros stored on computers," shrugged Xander staring off vaguely into the distance. "And if they should cry foul and get more money, well, they'll find it mysteriously reallocated again into yet other charities. Personally, I hope they complain a lot, those landmine victims in Mozambique could do with new artificial limbs, especially the children."

Everyone stared at each all wondering the same thing.

"Oh relax," Xander grouched shaking his head. "Even I am but a puppet, the only difference is that I can see the strings, no more able to affect my final destiny than any of you. God, the Creator, Allah, Buddah, the Divine…she could squish me like a fly."

"Okay," Dr Lee cleared his throat to break the silence that followed of that surprisingly pious statement. "Uh, General, I also have to elaborate on some of the systems that popped up in the science department and Captain Carter's lab. Molecular imagers being the most prominent, also what I think is a device which can do actual nano-assembly…the possibilities for that alone are endless."

"Put it in your report detailing your new capabilities in layspeak, Dr Lee," General Hammond ordered. "What about the Control Room? I noticed a few differences there that I saw Sergeants Siler and Walter squealing in delight over."

"Oh yeah, well, there's a completed subspace communication system that we've been in the experimental stages of at Area 51," explained Dr Lee with excitement. "We can talk to anyone with a compatible system across half the Galaxy now; through a Stargate that's extended to the entire Galaxy and it can communicate securely with the systems in the Stormtrooper armour with none of the normal interference you encounter using standard RF."

"The Gate's Dialling Computer has been augmented with biometric security as well, that scans the DNA of the person sitting at the controls and will shut itself down if someone unauthorized tries to use it." Dr Lee drank some water and continued. "Also the Stargate itself has been reinforced with emitters for a graviton shield that is one micron closer to the event horizon than the Iris."

"It's a Regenerative Shield that adapts to any weapon that's fired on it," Xander said suddenly grinning and laughing at something.

"All right," General Hammond said raising his hands to halt things. "I have a lot to take in; I'll take a tour of my 'new' base myself. Alexander, will you stick around?"

"I'll be here, though you may not see me," grinned Xander. "Jolinar needs a new host and I'll need to help facilitate it when the time comes. I'm sure the Colonel would like his team's resident scientist back."

Xander smirked knowingly at the Colonel.

_Surely he couldn't know…_

* * *

**Sunnydale**

Buffy walked into the Sunset Club, feeling a grim coldness in her. If Xander's warning hadn't been enough, Angel echoed it not a day later, then Willow finally turned up the fact that her old friend Billy Fordham wasn't even registered in school. Then there was the vampire that she had thought Ford had killed, but clearly hadn't, as the same vamp had stolen a book from Giles' office that very night. And the kick in the pants was the fact that Ford was part of some society that revered vampires.

The place was essentially one big basement, essentially decorated to be a dedication to vamps in popular culture; Dracula, Anna Rice, and the like; bat shaped lights, TVs blaring vampire movies, disco mirror balls, and a cliché eerie music was constantly being played over the large speakers. The people inside were all dressed in similarly cliché vamp costumes – all of them deluded into thinking that vamps give a shit if you revered or loved them.

She spotted Ford arguing with a girl seemingly in her late teens dressed in a cowled cape with fake fangs and another guy dressed in a totally over top Count Dracula outfit.

"It's gonna be fine!" Ford insisted, running a hand through his short dark hair.

"No." Buffy said loudly enough to be heard over the din, attracting everyone's attention. "It's really not."

"It's kinda drafty in here," Ford muttered pointedly to the cliché vamp guy.

"I'm sorry, Ford. I just couldn't wait till tonight! I'm rash and impulsive. It's a flaw." Buffy said pointedly, coming down the stairs onto the main floor of the club.

"We all have flaws." Ford pointed out, a cool demeanour now settling on him.

"I'm still a little fuzzy on exactly what yours is. I think it has to do with being a lying scumbag." Buffy stopped within arm reach of him.

"Everybody lies."

"What do you want, Ford? What's this all about?" Buffy growled, getting down to the point.

"I really don't think you'd understand."

"I don't need to understand. I just need to know," she countered frostily.

"I'm gonna be one of them." Ford said simply.

"You wanna be a vampire?" Buffy was incredulous.

"I'm going to."

"You know, vampires are a little picky about who they change ov..." Buffy trailed off as a realization dawned on her. "You were gonna offer them a trade!"

"I don't think I wanna talk anymore."

Buffy covered the distance between them in a flash, grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the nearby pillar, holding him easily two feet off the ground.

"Yeah, well, I still feel awfully chatty! You were gonna give them me! Tonight!"

"Yes," gasped Ford.

"You had to know I'd figure it out." She eased up on her grip to allow him to speak.

"Actually, I was counting on it."

"What's supposed to happen tonight?"

A loud clang resounded through the Club and Buffy spared a brief glance at the source of the sound. The inner door of the place had been closed by the cliché vamp guy, and it looked like pretty thick solid steel.

"Rigged up special. Once it's closed, it can only be opened from the outside. As soon as the sun sets, they'll be comin'." Ford smirked and Buffy threw him in disgust, he skidded a few feet along the floor painfully and got up, still smirking.

"If these people are still around when they get here..." Buffy looked at the people in the packed Sunset Club.

"We'll be changed. All of us," grinned the cliché vamp guy.

"We're going to ascend to a new level of consciousness! Become like them. Like the Lonely Ones," crowed the cape girl in glee.

"This is the end, Buffy. No one gets outta here alive." Ford shook his head.

"There's gotta be another way out of here," muttered Buffy, scanning the place desperately, deluded or not, these were still people she had a duty to save.

"This is a bomb shelter, Buffy. I knew I wasn't gonna be able to overpower you. But this is three feet of solid concrete. Trust me when I say we're in for the long haul."

"At least let the other people go," reasoned Buffy desperately.

"Why are you fighting this? It's what we want!" the cape girl said in confusion.

"It's our chance for immortality," cliché guy added his ten cents.

"This is a beautiful day. Can't you see that?"

"What I see is that, right after the sun goes down, Spike and all of his friends are going to be pigging out at the all-you-can-eat moron bar," Buffy said unpleasantly.

"Okay, that's it. I think we should gag her," the cliché guy said to Ford.

"I think you should try," Buffy growled threateningly.

"She's an unbeliever. She taints us."

"I am trying to save you! You are playing in some serious traffic here! Do you understand that? You're going to die! And the only hope you have of surviving this is to get out of this pit right now, and, my God, could you have a dorkier outfit?" Buffy exclaimed finally, unable to further resist pointing out the guy's sins against fashion and good taste.

The guy looked offended but the cape girl just laughed.

"I gotta back her up, Diego. You look like a big ninny," Ford admitted ruefully. The watch on his wrist beeped. "6:27. Sunset."

* * *

**Downing Street, London, England**

It was dark in the official residence of the United Kingdom's Prime Minister. Xander strode idly through the well appointed house that housed the 'First family' of Britain. It had a surprisingly homely feel that the White House had lacked. With the latter he had felt like he was walking in a museum, rather than a functional house. This was not the case here. Xander phased himself through the door to the master bedroom and through the darkness stared at the sleeping recumbent forms of Tony Blair and his wife.

He hated intruding like this but he had no other choice. He'd be damned if he made the same mistake as the Doc did in the Watchmen Universe. This world could not afford a Big Brother USA, not with the enemies the human race had. He walked towards the sleeping PM and placed a finger on the man's forehead. To an outside observer barely five seconds passed before Xander nodded with a grin and let go, he materialized a portable hard drive on the bed stand with a neat letter taped to it. It wouldn't do to have the man think it had only been a dream after all and the hard drive would keep the balance of power roughly even.

Xander turned and walked out of the room…two down, one hundred and eighty eight to go.

* * *

**Sunset Club, Sunnydale**

Buffy ran up the stairs towards the solid steel door and tried with all her strength to pull it open, but whoever had done this had done a good job. There was no way she could find enough purchase to exert all of her power. Kicking the door outwards would eventually cause the thick rebar steel to bend, but there was clearly not enough time to do that, and doing so would leave her spent and easy fodder if Spike was on the way.

Ford watched her initial struggle with amusement as he came up the stairs.

"Hey, you never give up, do you?"

"No, I don't." She said coldly in reply.

"That's a good quality in a person. Too many people, they just lay back and take it, but us..."

"Us? We have something in common now?" Buffy turned to face him, her face showing contempt.

"More than you think." Ford said assuredly.

"Yeah, well, let me explain something to you. You're what we call the bad guy." Buffy said in a tone as if she was addressing a five year old.

"I guess I am!" Ford chuckled.

"These people aren't gonna get changed, are they? The rest of them, they're just fodder." She looked down at the excited crowd in the Club feeling a grim cold settle on her heart.

"Technically, yes. But I'm in. I will become immortal," Ford grinned at her.

"Well, I've got a news flash for you, braintrust: that's not how it works. You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old house, and it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it's not you." Buffy explained condescendingly.

"It's better than nothing," Ford asserted.

"And your life is nothing?" Buffy asked in confusion, Ford only snickered at seeing it and it sent her ire rocketing. "Ford, these people don't deserve to die!"

"Well, neither do I! But apparently no one took that into consideration, 'cause I'm still dying." Buffy's eyes widened as the implication set in. "I look good, don't I? Well, let me tell you something, I've got maybe six months left, and by then what they bury won't even _look_ like me. It'll be bald and shrivelled and it'll smell bad. No, I'm not going out that way." Buffy didn't want him to see any hints of pity on her face and turned away. "I'm sorry, Summers. Did I screw up your righteous anger riff? Does the nest of tumours liquefying my brain kinda spoil the fun?"

"I'm sorry. I had no idea. But what you're doing is still very wrong." Buffy looked at him again.

"Okay, well, you try vomiting for twenty-four hours straight because the pain in your head is so intense, and _then_ we'll discuss the concept of right and wrong." Ford pointed contemptuously downward. "These people are sheep. They wanna be vampires 'cause they're lonely, miserable or bored. I don't have a choice."

"You have a choice. You don't have a good choice, but you have a choice! You're opting for mass murder here, and nothing you say is gonna make that okay!" Buffy shook her head angrily.

"You think I need to justify myself to you?" sneered Ford.

"I think this is all part of your little fantasy drama! Isn't this exactly how you imagined it? You tell me how you've suffered and I feel sorry for you. Well, I do feel sorry for you, and if those vampires come in here and start feeding, I'll kill you myself!"

"You know what, Summers? I really did miss you," Ford said musingly.

Buffy found she had run out of logical arguments, and then they heard a car outside skid to a stop. She felt her spidey sense give a major blip…the vampires were here.

"Ford, help me stop this." Pleading was all that was left, Ford only continued to stare in silence. "Please." Silence. "Screw it." Buffy threw a flat handed strike directly into Ford that sent him flying off the balcony and crashing into the crowd, which partially cushioned him but he still fell into unconsciousness.

"People, listen to me! This is not the mothership, people! This is ugly death come to play! Ford sold you out! He's the only one getting turned!" Buffy rushed down the stairs again, trying to find a defensible position as the crowd tried to comprehend that, but time had run out. The inner door burst open to reveal the bleached haired Spike with his vampire girlfriend Drusilla and a murder of vampire minions behind them.

"Take them all," snarled Spike with his vampiric face exposed, "save the Slayer for me."

The vampires exploded into motion and jumped from the upper balcony down into the midst of crowd and promptly began grabbing people to feed. Spike took the time to walk leisurely down the stairs, looking smugly at Buffy as she offhandedly dusted a nearby vampire with her stake, which was about to start feeding on the cape girl.

"Let's dance, Sla…" before Spike could even finish the comment he met a double handed strike to the solar plexus from Buffy that sent him crashing against the concrete wall, breaking chunks out of it with the force of the impact. She made a running jump from the sofa for the key to stopping this massacre and grabbed onto the upper railing, vaulted it, and promptly wrapped the surprised and weakened Drusilla into a choke hold with a stake poised right over her heart.

"Spike!"

The vampire in question was still wobbly on his feet but had recovered enough of his wits to see the clear threat.

"STOP!"

The vampires hastened to obey, letting go, several people slumped to the floor from the blood loss, but for most the feeding had stopped in time to let them keep their hold on consciousness.

"Good idea. Now you let everyone out, or your girlfriend fits in an ashtray," Buffy threatened with relish.

"Spike?" Drusilla was clearly frightened.

"It's gonna be alright, baby. Let them go!" ordered Spike with pure command of being the oldest vamp in the room behind him. The vampires reluctantly obeyed again and everyone, now thoroughly and properly educated in the true nature of vampires fled up the stairs, those unconscious were picked up by others and dragged along.

Once everyone was out, only the vampires on the lower level, Spike on the stairs, Drusilla and Buffy were left…in addition to a still unconscious Ford – seems no one felt like rescuing the one who had betrayed them.

"My, my, my, well done Buffy," Xander suddenly appeared standing next to her.

"Thanks," she nodded, tightening her grip on Drusilla.

"What in the blazes?!" exclaimed Spike staring at Xander with fear. "How are you still…that blue bloke…?"

"My twinkly kitten is beyond my sight, he's not there but is, and he does not let me see him…." Drusilla said as she stared with appreciative yet still absent mad eyes at Xander.

Xander ignored the ramblings of the Seeress vampire, narrowed his glowing blue eyes at Spike and gestured with two fingers for the vamp to come closer. The bleached Billy Idol look-a-like vampire found himself hovering in the air and moving slowly to the same level as the balcony. "Good doggy," mocked Xander and pointed his palm towards the lower level and a directed wide beam blast of solar radiation that dusted every single vampire on the lower level. He gave a snap of his fingers and the astonished vampire couple vanished only to reappear on the lower level amidst the dust of their former minions.

Xander guided Buffy towards the inner door and shut it behind them, sealing Spike and Drusilla in the Sunset Club with Ford.

They emerged into the alley outside the Club to see the former vampire worshipping people helping each other out and tending to their wounds and helping those in a more critical condition towards cars and on their way to hospital.

Angel and Willow waded their way through the crowd over to Xander and Buffy.

"You guys are just in time," commented Buffy wryly.

"Are there vampires?" Willow asked cautiously.

"Yeah, was, Xander blasted all the minions with sunlight, Spike and Drusilla are still alive, but contained. They'll get out eventually, though."

"I wish you just would…" Angel turned to Xander, leaving the sentence unfinished.

"Believe it or not, both have a part to play in the future ahead, they are necessary," Xander said earnestly.

"For good or evil?" Buffy asked pointedly.

"Ying Yang, guys, Yang Ying, adios," Xander nodded at them and vanished with a flash of light.

"We should probably go too," Buffy advised. "We can come back when the gruesome twosome are gone."

"Come back for what?" Willow asked in confusion.

"For the body." Buffy stared at the sealed entrance of the Club, pondering Xander's comment…how could vampires as evil as Spike and Drusilla ever amount to anything 'good'?

* * *

Sunnydale High School, a place of learning that probably didn't so much as register a blip on the minds of most Californians as a place to want to study at, was winding down to the end of another day filled with the usual antics and hijinks of students in their late teens. Jenny Calendar, resident Computer Teacher, Technopagan, and the relatively newest member of the group affectionately known as the Scoobies – who like their cartoon counterparts – fought the vampires and evils of the Hellmouth - was picking up the programming books from her last class of the day.

Her mind dwelled on her last date with Rupert Giles; Watcher, mentor and trainer of Buffy Summers. It was not exactly a conventional choice going to monster trucks but it had had its moments. There just wasn't much to do together around the Sunnydale area except for the traditional dinner date. She sighed and combed her neck length tresses of dark brown hair absently with her fingers as she balanced the pile of books on her hip.

Honestly, sometimes she couldn't fathom what attracted her to Rupert. His sometimes bumbling manner that most definitely hid depths that he kept well out of plain sight…or was it the sense she had that he was a man you could count on…that he treated her like a true lady…or was it just as simple that she was a sucker for Brits.

She walked forward not really looking where she was going and was promptly startled when her vision was obscured by a blue haze and an electric tingling prickled all over her body. She squeaked in fright, dropping her books with a crash and stumbled forward…thankfully the blue haze vanished and her sight returned… the tingling went away.

She turned around and gasped.

"Really, Miss Calendar, you should pay attention to your surroundings more, this is the hellmouth after all…be thankful I can make myself insubstantial," Xander turned around to face her with a big dopey grin on his face.

"Yes, uh hu," she cleared her throat uncomfortably and started to pick up the dropped books, more to hide her blushing face…it wasn't only the accident causing the blush though. She had only met Xander once since his transformation, and it had been something Giles had discussed often on their date – especially the science behind it and the training Xander was giving Buffy in how to harness her 'energy' properly. She was therefore not used to at all to staring at such a perfect exemplar of a male physique.

Before she could even begin to pick up a book though, they seemingly got a mind of their own, and flew through the air to settle in a perfect pile on her desk.

"Thanks," she said, pushing her hair behind her ear nervously and walking to her desk.

"What you fear most will happen."

It felt as if an icy hand gripped her heart and squeezed slightly. She stopped, putting her hand on a nearby desk to support herself, and didn't turn around lest her startled face betray her. _What am I thinking? He has a non-linear perception of time…why do I try? He knows already. Yet why do I not come clean?...Rupert_. She feared his reaction when he would learn of her heritage.

She took a deep breath, composed herself and turned around. Xander was simply staring at her with a fathomless look in his glowing eyes. "Or should I say what your _clan_ fears most, will happen."

"Angel?" she asked with dread.

Xander's face became pleased and he nodded. "I've not looked into the specifics of the probability line yet, or what causes it, but Angel will turn on us before the year is out."

"Then I have some explaining to do."

"Indeed, Jana."

* * *

**SGC – Briefing Room**

Jack O'Neill sat in his customary seat at the table and grumbled to himself in irritation, he and the rest of the SG teams one through twelve had barely had five hours of training today with the MR1s and trooper armour before the call from Hammond had come, summoning him, Teal'C and Daniel for an emergency briefing.

They were all still clad in the armour, minus the helmets of course. Jack was a great fan of the design; instead of the dinky white colour of the original stormtroopers that would make them stand out like a sore thumb in any natural or urban environment; the armour was painted in a perfect rippling green pattern that broke up their forms. On the shoulder sections were the traditional 'A' point of origin for Earth and chevron 1 symbols denoting SG1.

The rail rifles on the other hand; it was just pure vanilla firing those babies. Especially the built in grenade launcher that had a targeting computer that calculated the perfect angle for you to shoot, so that the grenade would land on precisely the spot you wanted to; like for instance, right behind a bit of cover that an entrenched enemy was using. It was also nice not to have to worry about ammo so much any more. With full gear a soldier could now carry one thousand rounds with him for the rail rifle, instead of just two hundred.

Hammond emerged from his adjoining office with distinctly harried look. "Sorry to interrupt your training, SG1, but there has been a rather distinct set of developments which will alter the way we do business here in the SGC."

"What sort of developments, Sir?" Jack frowned in worry.

"It seems that our resident superhuman has thrown us a curveball," Hammond laughed with a shake of his head. "I just got off the phone with the President, who's seemingly had his own phone glued to his head for the past two days. He's been fielding conference calls with practically every foreign head of state on the whole damn planet."

One didn't have to be a genius to connect the dots. "Oh no, tell me Alexander didn't do what I think he did?" Jack asked wearily.

"If you mean, did I disclose the Stargate program to them, then yes, I did." Alexander appeared again, out of nowhere at the other end of the table.

"Why on earth did you do that? Do you know what kind of wrangle that is gonna cause?" Jack exclaimed incredulously and angrily.

"Easy Colonel, he knew," Hammond gestured for his subordinate to back down. "Alexander…if you would explain it to us."

"Put it this way," the superhuman explained. "Despite the technological leg up I gave you there is one thing that will always be against us. Numbers. General Hammond, have you looked at any intel gained from Klorel's mothership yet?"

"Yes," nodded Hammond and sighed explosively, rubbing his hand over his bald head. "When we started this program I said we were in over our heads…but I never realized the full extent of that statement until I read that preliminary report."

"How many Goa'uld Ha'tak class motherships are there in the Galaxy?" Alexander asked mildly.

"Those that Apophis knows about at least…just over a thousand odd…"

"One thousand three hundred and twenty four, to be exact." Alexander said casually.

"Holy crap!" Jack felt an unbearable weight settle on his shoulders at the thought. There were barely fifty two trained Air Force special operators in the SGC, and that was it, holding the line against that many bad guys…it was seemingly impossible! He gave a glance at Daniel to see him look like someone had swung a bat in his face. Teal'C was obviously less shaken by the news, as he knew of the strength of Apophis' fleet and some of the other System Lords, but even he was aghast at the total number.

"So you see, there is no possible way you could defeat them in a straight fight, we can be thankful that they are a Feudal empire. And spend the majority of their time fighting amongst themselves for territory and resources – rather than worrying about a 'backwater' planet like us. Therefore, the only solution is to increase the numbers on your side significantly. What I've done is a first step in that direction."

"What have you done, exactly?"

"I briefed every single Head of State with any sort of standing army on the entire situation, gave them a virtual tour of the SGC, opened their eyes with some probable futures, and pointed out some hard truths. I made them realize that we either unite, or we let ourselves be enslaved and die. What use are our petty squabbles over who has what on this planet, when there's an entire Galaxy full of parasitical aliens that could glass the planet with an all out attack."

"And the result?" winced Jack, knowing the shit that politicians could pull out of their asses and mouths.

"Well, the SGC keeps its day job and location, so you can relax Colonel," Alexander grinned at them in amusement. "Each country who played ball with me received numerous tech schematics and the capability to replicate that technology…keeping the balance of power on the planet level. Also, General Hammond will find his worries over the operating budget a thing of the past – each country part of this new alliance has to make a financial contribution to it. And more importantly, they have to contribute twelve special operators for ground ops and a team of their best engineers and scientists to begin work at Area 51. Countries with navies must also send twenty four officers and crew who will eventually man the starships that you are in the planning stages of."

"How many countries are we talking about?" Daniel asked looking amazed now.

"One hundred and eighty one is the exact number I believe. Meaning the SGC will have access to over two thousand men and women for operations against the Goa'uld in the near future."

"Cool," mumbled Jack absently. Two thousand was better than fifty, but it was still not enough and Earth would need time to start to build up its own space fleet…would they have that time? _But wait a sec…"_Umm, I might be wrong but aren't we getting ahead of ourselves here, wont we need naquadah and lots of it to build these spaceships…"

Alexander just grinned and looked significantly at Hammond. The General frowned for a moment before apparently realizing what the superhuman was implying. "Well, it seems that this is a good a time as any; a few days ago a patrol in the restricted zone of Area 51 stumbled upon a protrusion of dark rock about fifteen feet high that was not on any of their maps, they took samples and take one guess what the scientists found it was…"

"Naquadah?!" Daniel said incredulously.

"Exactly," nodded Hammond. "A preliminary survey and scan was done, it's the tip of a huge network of naquadah veins that have seemingly sprung up from nowhere."

"Basic matter synthesis from one type to another," Alexander grinned. "Okay, getting back to the SGC, it's name will stay the same, immediate decisions that need to be bumped up to higher authority will still go to the President. But long term ones will fall to a Council of Nations that is being hammered out by the various Heads of State. The current working name they have for the new body is the Union of Earth."

"Wow, that sounds actually as if it will work…hopefully it won't turn into the dog and pony of the UN," Daniel said with raised eyebrows, looking impressed.

"It won't," Alexander said with intent. "And there will none of that power of veto bullshit either; each country will have an equal voice."

* * *

**High Jupiter Orbit, Sol System**

If anyone from Earth could have been there, they would've seen a strange sight indeed. Something was moving amongst the many moons of the Gas Giant. It vaguely resembled a spiked sphere in shape, though was seemingly made of numerous interlocking pieces that orbited around a transparent chamber…most people would be reminded of the inner workings of a clock. Xander sat in Indian fashion inside the chamber and gazed with wonder at the celestial beauty dancing around him.

He allowed himself an hour of exploration, zipping about the moons and giving himself a close up of Jupiter's great storm. It could swallow numerous volumes of Earth, so giant was it. Doing this was the greatest remedy for the risk of developing a big head – it was so easy when walking on Earth to begin to view his fellows as people beneath his notice. Doc Manhattan had fallen into that trap, and the result had nearly been nuclear holocaust. There was also the fact that in this Universe there was the Goa'uld to deal with, not to mention numerous other foes even greater. The Doc's Universe had aliens as well, but none had developed any form of practical FTL tech and had never interacted or grew greater to the level of being interstellar powers.

Then there was the other possibility…companionship. Xander knew the Doc had not found anyone he could be absolutely sure was worthy of the gift he could give and would not abuse it, but this was not the case here in this Universe. He could already see three potential candidates just amongst his circle of friends – whether they would accept it was another question.

"Enough putting it off, Xander," he mumbled to himself. His clockship zipped within a blink of an eye to a low orbit above the gas giant and with his mind he reached into the vast ball of gas, pulling the necessary amount of matter out of it.

He continued pulling until about twenty five cubic kilometres of space was filled with the mixed gasses that Jupiter was made up of. Steeling himself he snapped his fingers and suddenly it was all converted to pure energy, the image of what he wanted firmly fixed in his mind, he quickly gave another flick of his fingers before the energy overwhelmed him.

There was a large flash of light and then from out of seemingly nowhere, the mushroom shaped space station known as Earth Spacedock from Star Trek appeared, significantly scaled up to be over twelve kilometres in height and six in diameter. He had moulded the hull out of an alloy of titanium, trinium and naquadah, but at the moment, that was all this giant space station was… an empty hull. Now began the harder more arduous task of making the thing habitable, not to mention capable of defending itself.

_Ah, what fun_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Sunnydale Memorial Hospital**

Buffy Summers, stood out of sight in a pair of nearby shrubbery observing the ER entrance of the hospital and was feeling rather peeved.

"'Don't be late' sheesh," she muttered to herself sarcastically, imitating the voice of her Watcher – who was supposed to be with her at the moment staking out the delivery of fresh supplies of donor blood to the hospital, and making sure that it actually got there. Vamps tended to take any freebie that they could get their hands on – and stealing the hospital blood supply was not off the menu at all.

This was especially true lately; with her Slaying tally and proficiency way up there, not to mention Xander teleporting about all over the place dusting vampires about to make meals of people – the undead of Sunnydale was running scared.

She pulled out her mobile phone (a gift from Xander that he modified to be ultra thin, light and durable) and fully intended to call Giles and ask him what was going on, only to put it back in her pocket as she spotted the blood van pulling up to the ER entrance. The driver got out with his clipboard and was met by two Doctors in white coats emerging from the entrance.

"Hey, fellas."

"Hey." The Doctors greeted.

"All's well that ends with cute ER doctors, I always say." Buffy grinned to herself, watching as the Docs signed for the delivery. She watched them go to the back of the van and get out the insulated container. They started back with the driver, and he got back into the van. It was then that the whole oddness of the scene hit her. "Since when do doctors take deliveries?"

The van backed out of the ambulance slot. The doctors waved to the driver. "See ya."

The van drove off, behind it a car engine started and a pair of headlights came on. An old convertible pulled up into the light as the doctors put the container down. One of them opened the lid, took out a bag of blood and began to suck on it. The driver of the convertible got out, his face a mask of irritation as soon as he spotted the vamp disguised as a doctor doing this.

"Hey! No sampling the product!" snarled the vamp driver.

The doctor vampire hissed, his game face out, but grudgingly put the bag back down and dropped the lid closed.

Buffy spotted her opening as the vamps were now fully focused on the blood and ran to attack. In barely a few moments she covered the distance and was among them kicking the first doctor vampire down, then the second, and did a roundhouse kick to the driver's face.

The first one got up in a daze, and she kicked him again, sending him crashing into the hood of the car, denting it severely, and he staggered away and fell. A fourth vampire ran up as Buffy whirled, taking out a stake.

She stayed her hand though as she recognized this vampire.

"Angel!"

"Buffy! Look out!"

He jumped up onto the car's hood and leapt off to tackle the driver vampire coming at her from behind. Angel punched him in the face, but the vamp kept a vertical base. The second vampire ran and swung at Buffy.

She ducked the punch easily and jabbed him in the chest, causing him to reel in pain. The first vampire jumped in at this point, too, and Buffy knocked him back with a punch to the face. She punched the second one in the face, and he fell down on his back. Taking the opportunity she thrusted her stake into the first vampire as he tried to get back up – causing him to explode into ashes moments later. The second one had recovered by then and grabbed her by the shirt from behind. She swung around with the stake and nailed him in the chest.

Angel, in the mean time, roundhouse kicked the driver and sent him spinning into the car. The vampire quickly sat up in the driver's seat and floored the accelerator as Angel tried to chase him. The car raced off, leaving Angel and the blood behind.

Buffy sighed in irritation as she watched the car rapidly disappear into the night and opened the lid to check on the blood supply. "How did you know about this?" she asked Angel curiously.

"It's delivery day. Everybody knows about this," shrugged the souled vampire and glanced into the container. "They only ruined one bag."

Buffy stood up and Angel kicked the lid of the blood container closed. "Do you think you could make sure the hospital gets the rest?" She kicked herself metaphorically a moment later, only then realizing who she was asking to do this. Angel was quite sensitive about his feeding habits. Luckily, he didn't take offence and just nodded. "Thanks. I'm worried about Giles. He was supposed to meet me here," she hurried to explain.

"Maybe he's late," Angel said reasonably.

"Giles? Who counts tardiness as, like, the eighth deadly sin?" Buffy grinned in amusement.

"Right. Go," he nodded, conceding the point and picked up the blood container. Buffy gave him one last look and ran off in a blur.

* * *

**Sunnydale High**

The next morning Buffy hurried through the various hallways of the school which probably was the only one in the country that had an obituary in its own small newspaper. Now normally she wouldn't be caught dead in the place during a weekend, but she had a problem. And there were only one, maybe two people who could possibly assist.

She entered the computer classroom and just as she hoped, there was Jenny Calendar; Giles' girlfriend, teacher, moonlighting technopagan and latest member of the Scoobies. The fact that a woman as attractive as her would be interested in her Watcher still threw Buffy Summers for a loop whenever she contemplated it; _oh well, to each his own or was it _her_ own, in this case_.

Sitting behind their own respective computers was Willow and Cordelia. Ah yes, those two were taking extra classes. Willow because she _was_…Willow, and Cordelia because she just sucked at computers. Xander was also there and providing a huge distracto for the two girls with his sparkly, muscly, nude bod – even Ms Calendar was giving the superhuman an occasional appreciative glance. He was standing at a computer that he had moved aside for himself and holding his hand a foot above the keyboard – and the keys seemed to be typing themselves as fast as was mechanically possible.

"Buffy? This is a surprise," Jenny grinned at her.

"You mean you didn't know…" Buffy glanced at Xander with questioning eyes.

"I don't keep a constant watch on the timeline Buffy," Xander shook his head in irritation. "I would like some mystery to remain in my daily life." He gave her a loose grin. "Though I'm sure you're not here to have remedial computer lessons…or listen to my _fascinating _rant on how the new Windows 98 is a veritable hive of bugs which I'm correcting at the moment…so what's up?"

"Actually I wanted to talk to you for a second," Buffy said seriously to Ms Calendar.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, worry entering her expression.

"I'm not sure...but something's up with Giles."

"He's all right, isn't he?" Willow asked, her own concern going up a notch.

"I don't know. He didn't show up last night when he was supposed to, and then I went by his place and he was acting... well, very Anti-Giles."

"You went by his place? He has a place?" Everyone turned to Willow at this remark in askance. She hurriedly backtracked. "Of course he has a... I just never think of him living anywhere outside the library. So there was weirdness?"

"He wouldn't let me in. He looked terrible. And I think he might have been... uh, I think he was drinking," Buffy explained awkwardly.

"He was home alone drinking?" Ms Calendar asked in concern.

"But... tea, right?" Willow grinned.

"It wasn't tea, Will," Buffy shook her head.

"Everyone carries the legacy of their past on their shoulders Buffy," Xander spoke with his 'Doc Manhattan' aspect. "Giles is no different. We all wear masks to hide our true faces."

"What are you saying?"

"Nothing yet everything," he grinned enigmatically.

"None of you have noticed anything different about him lately?" Buffy asked in exasperation, turning away from Mr Cryptic.

"No." "Not really."

"He was perfectly normal yesterday when I saw him talking to the police." Cordelia supplied at this moment. Everyone turned to her with astonished looks.

"And you waited until now to tell us because...?" Buffy said letting an edge into her voice.

"I didn't think it was important." She shrugged.

"Yes we understand, it wasn't about you," Xander said acerbically.

"What were the police talking to him about?" Ms Calendar asked intently.

"Something about a...homicide, yes…that's what the detective said."

"I'm calling him right now," Buffy strode resolutely out of the classroom, heading straight for the neighbouring library. It was only as she was halfway to Giles' office that she realized she had been given a mobile phone for a reason. _Damnit, still have to get used to using the thing_.

She had barely reached into her pocket to retrieve it when she heard a noise coming from between the stacks of the library. She looked up and heard it again…it was almost as if someone was shuffling through the books. No one legit would be here on a Saturday except for Giles and the Scoobies…so that meant…

Buffy stalked up into the stacks and cautiously flitted from shadow to shadow, aisle to aisle, scanning for the source of the intrusion. She suddenly heard the something move behind her and whirled to confront it, but nothing was there. She pinned herself against a bookcase, to prevent the intruder from blindsiding her and moved slowly along to the end of the shelves…still nothing. Slayer Instinct caused her to whirl around and stare through the rack her back was against and was startled to see the face of a man staring back at her.

She jumped back and realized the entire bookcase was coming down on her; no doubt pushed by the intruder. She tumbled and rolled out of the aisle to avoid the bookcase crashing down, and saw the man running away. She easily leaped over the toppled bookcase and in two blurred strides caught up with him, snagging him by the collar in a Slayer grip; whirling him around to face her.

She noticed his age was in the same vein as Giles, he was rather skinny and had a shifty look about him. It was then that she recognized him and hot anger erupted.

"I know you, you ran that costume shop," Buffy groused.

"I'm pleased you remember," grinned Ethan shamelessly, though uncomfortably.

"You sold me that dress for Halloween, that nearly got us all killed, not to mention what you did to Xander!"

"But you looked great, and I did you all a favour, he's a superhuman now … how many vampires and demons has he helped you kill, Slayer? How many evil plots has he unmasked with his perception of time?" Buffy responded by throwing an appropriately scaled right hook into Ethan's jaw. He massaged his jaw ruefully. "So now we're even?"

"I'll let you know when we're even," Buffy shook him a bit. "I'm going to ask you once and  
then I'm pretty much going straight to the pummeling: what are you doing here?"

"Snooping around," grinned Ethan unrepentantly.

"Honesty. Nice touch," Buffy was surprised.

"It's one of my virtues," Ethan said, then mockingly thought about it. "Not really."

"I got a great idea... why don't I just call the police and have you arrested for breaking  
and entering and get back to my fun Saturday."

"Yes, the police. They'll have so many questions -- they'll really need Rupert to answer them all." Ethan said smugly.

"You know Giles?" she looked at him in askance.

"We go back. Way back. You wouldn't happen to know where he is, would you?"

* * *

Xander led the way into the library with the others behind him. The sound of crashing glass and the meaty slap of fists and kicks meeting flesh was unmistakable. They burst through the double doors and…

"Don't let him get away!"

Xander reacted in a less than a moment. His hand coming up forming a solid barrier of gravitons into which Ethan Rayne slammed face first. Another gesture had the man responsible for his transformation slowly floating upward into one of his patented zero G traps.

There was a solid clang of metal on metal next and everyone whirled to see that Buffy had slammed the library cage door on an old man, who was clearly of the undead; judging by his sick yellow eyes, pale bloodless pallor and he was raging with way more strength against the bars than should've been possible. Xander's ESP felt sickened by what he was picking up from the corpse.

"Ah, just bloody poetic this is," grumbled Ethan, flailing in mid-air.

"Hello, Ethan Rayne," Xander grinned. "Buffy, explanation please?"

"Caught him snooping in the stacks, mentioned something about the Mark of Eyghon, spoke to Giles, he freaked out, then Mr Undead attacked," Buffy narrated, securing the cage against the snarling undead man.

"Eyghon?" Xander frowned for a moment, and then his eyes glowed noticeably brighter. "Buffy, get away from the cage…now! Everyone back off…under no circumstances come near this thing." Buffy whirled to see Xander raising his hand, and wisely got out of the way. The cage door seemed to 'wobble' and there was a snapping sound…the next moment they all regarded a cage with no door whatsoever.

"You summoned the thing, didn't you?" accused Xander, looking up at Ethan.

"We were young," shrugged the Chaos Mage uncomfortably.

"What's the what, Xander?" Buffy asked gesturing to the undead guy uselessly pummelling against the cage.

"I don't know all the specifics – but the undead in there is a dream demon called Eyghon."

"Dream…as in Freddy Kruger dream demon?" Willow asked faintly.

"No, no, relax Will," Xander held up his hands appealingly. "This sucker must be summoned and can only manifest itself by possessing the dead or the unconscious."

"Sorry, Philip, really I am," mumbled Ethan as he tumbled in mid-air with a view of the cage.

"Why on Earth would you summon this…?" Ms Calendar gestured to Eyghon with a disgusted look on her face.

The Mage looked reluctant to answer. "You better answer or I'll leave you trapped for a _very_ long time." Xander threatened.

"What can I say, it gave us a high to be possessed by it," Ethan replied grudgingly.

Giles burst into the library at this moment. Buffy wasn't kidding…he looked like shit. He hadn't shaved, his hair was a mess and he had bags under his eyes from a lack of sleep.

"Is everyone alright?" the Watcher demanded.

"We're okay," Ms Calendar answered with a frown staring at the contained Eyghon and then Giles.

"Eyghon here interrupted our tutorial," Xander said mildly, jerking a thumb at the cage. Giles walked over to have a look at the body of Philip that was now merely snarling at them. "Not too close Giles. It's not going anywhere, and it will die soon enough when it wears out that host and has nowhere to go."

Giles nodded and backed off, then turned to Ethan.

"Hello, Ripper."

"I thought I told you to leave town," Giles said menacingly.

"You did. I didn't. Shop's lease is paid till the end of the month."

"Xander let him go."

"Very well," nodded the superhuman and abruptly Ethan fell out of the air and landed painfully.

"Owww! Ahhh!" Giles picked the Mage up by the back of his hair and looked spitting mad as he glared at Ethan.

"You should've left," said Giles. Xander was impressed at the sheer threat that was conveyed in his tone.

"Ohhhhh," Cordelia said in wonder and fright at seeing this new side of Giles.

"Giles?!" Buffy asked; she clearly totally confused at seeing her normally stiff-upper lip British Watcher losing it like this.

"You put these people in danger, the people I care about!" snarled Giles.

"If you cared so much about them, why didn't _you_ leave town?" retorted the Mage, and pushed Giles arms away. "You've been having the dreams, I know. I have."

"That will not be necessary," Xander said. The snarling dead body of Philip suddenly seemed to convulse and abruptly collapsed to the floor of the library cage, before it dissolved into a puddle of sickly green slime that began to spread out.

"Oh, I'm gonna need counselling until I'm thirty," moaned Cordelia, looking sickened by the sight.

Xander simply gave a gesture and the slime abruptly seemed to shiver and was vaporized.

He turned around and abruptly both Giles and Ethan felt themselves seized by an invisible force and brought forward to hover a foot off the ground. Xander strode to meet them and said, "Arms, gentlemen." Both Watcher and Mage suddenly looked reluctant. "Do you want another dream demon homing in on you or not?"

Giles abruptly held out his left arm and pulled up his shirt sleeve to reveal a curvy black tattoo. Ethan ruefully did the same. Xander willed the pigment particles embedded into the base of the skin to raise out and a few moments later nothing but clear skin was on both men's arms.

"Have a good day, Ethan Rayne," Xander snapped his fingers and the Mage vanished, teleported back into his shop. He also let Giles down gently to stand on his own feet.

"Thank you," nodded Giles grimly and his eyes met that of Ms Calendar. The computer teacher looked down after a brief moment and abruptly walked out of the library. Giles looked after her retreating form sadly, knowing that she had connected the dots.

"Giles, what was all that?" Buffy asked incredulously.

"It will take some time to explain," said the Watcher, looking beyond exhausted as he collapsed into a chair.

"We have all weekend, Giles," Xander said with a friendly grin, and a cup of steaming hot Earl Grey Tea appeared in front of the Watcher. Giles took it with a weak grin of thanks and took a sip…

"I was twenty-one, studying history at Oxford. And, of course, the occult by night. I hated it. The tedious grind of study, the...overwhelming pressure of my destiny. I dropped out, I went to London... I fell in with the worst crowd that would have me. We practiced magicks. Small stuff for pleasure or gain. And Ethan and I discovered something... bigger."

"Eyghon?" Buffy asked.

"Yes. One of us would, um..." he took a sip of tea nervously, "go into a deep sleep, and the others would, uh, summon him. It was an extraordinary high!" He smiled wanly. "God, we were fools."

"You couldn't control it," Buffy deduced.

"One of us, Randall, he lost control. Eyghon took him whole. We tried to exorcise the demon from Randall, but it killed him. No. We killed him. We thought we were free of the demon after that. Thank you again, Xander…I've been trying all weekend to find a way to kill this thing. I wonder…maybe that's why Ethan came here."

"He knew I could protect him and kill Eyghon," Xander nodded. "Rather risky, I could've decided to let Eyghon have him because of his past and current profession."

"But you didn't," pointed out Giles.

"No, killing Ethan will not save any lives in the future," Xander shook his head. "He doesn't want to kill, he wants Chaos and people have to be alive for that to happen." Giles nodded and turned his head towards the library doors again. "She's a woman, G-Man, and they need time alone to sort out their feelings…the odds are in your favour. Just don't pressure her."

"Hey, since when are you so…on the up… about women?" Cordelia asked in bafflement. Xander raised a glowing eyebrow in her direction with a mysterious smile.

* * *

**SGC**

The twentieth sublevel of the huge underground base was the closest thing to luxury that the SGC could offer alien guests and visitors. Since the Ash'rak had been stopped and Jolinar's bona fides as a Tok'ra somewhat verified by both circumstance and Xander, she had been moved to this level but always had a two man Security Force escort detail right outside her door. Xander approached VIP Quarters A12 and immediately the two SFs tensed and he could feel their amazement and fear – both were quite understandable.

General Hammond had officially given Xander free run of the SGC and signed him on the books as a 'High Clearance Civilian Consultant'. It wasn't as if the General could do much otherwise to stop Xander from going where he wanted – and with all that he had helped the SGC already, it was pretty reasonable to get something back.

Speaking of which, the President had already requested a private meeting with Xander in the near future when his schedule permitted it – obviously the man wanted something; he was a politician after all. Xander had probably stepped on quite a few egos when he made the NID go the way of the dodo, and there were probably a lot of unhappy people beating on the President's door.

Xander knocked on the door politely – sure he could just zip through it, but that was impolite…he didn't want to walk in whilst Jolinar and Captain Carter were undressing or something. Just because he had no use for clothing and no shame of body, didn't mean others shared that.

"Come in."

Captain Carter/Jolinar was seated on the large double bed in the VIP quarters, and was now dressed in a rather flattering summer dress, with a velvety cardigan wrapped around her. Strewn on the bed were numerous files, which she was examining carefully. He sensed carefully for who was in control.

"Jolinar," he greeted and closed the door behind him.

"Alexander." She stood and bowed her head slightly.

"How goes the search?" He gestured to the files.

"Slowly," she replied, her voice deep in the cadence of the symbiote speaking. "But I must admit this is a luxury that the Tok'ra has never had before; to pick and choose an ideal host. The levels of detail in these files are quite…invasive."

"It's a necessary evil of sorts, when someone reaches the levels of clearance required to know about certain things, you have to be certain there isn't something wrong with their thinking and judgement."

"I understand, somewhat, Sam has also expounded on the subject," nodded Jolinar, perusing the files. Xander eyed the ones that seemed to be prominent in her search.

"All females?"

"I prefer a female host, just like you prefer not to wear clothing," Jolinar said shortly.

"Okay, no big, just curious…how will you decide?"

"A big factor is the specific ailment that the host suffers from," the Tok'ra replied thoughtfully, browsing through a file, "a viral disease is more easily curable than a genetic one, and a physical disability can be extremely difficult to repair depending on the severity. Jumping into a new host requires a small amount of sacrifice on my part, since I need to sever neural linkages that grow to be a part of me. The longer I stay in Captain Carter, the harder it will be to leave."

"Then there's also the personality you're blending with to consider too, I suppose?" posited Xander. "You don't want to merge with a psycho or someone too whacky?"

"It is a factor, perhaps the most important one," Jolinar confirmed with a nod, and abruptly gathered some files to herself and arranged it into a pile, "I have narrowed it down to these four possibilities."

Xander gestured to the pile and the four thick manilla brown files hovered into the air and came to a stop in front of him. "Very well." He snapped his fingers and files vanished, and would reappear on General Hammond's desk to get the ball rolling on this.

* * *

**Sunnydale High – Student Lounge**

A perception disguised Xander (his glowing blue form would only be visible to those he wished – everyone else saw the 'ordinary' Xander, but without the baggy clothes, and instead wore rather smart jeans, loose shirt, leather jacket and Doc Martin shoes) sat next to Willow and Buffy, waiting for them to finish her Aptitude tests. He had filled it in within less than five minutes, and knew what the results would indicate…it would be necessary to get him in the AP courses, so he could build the background necessary for the future. He could use his powers to do the same, but Doc M in his head wanted to keep Xander grounded and achieve everything related to his 'ordinary affairs' the normal way. Xander was the touchstone and anchor, if he also developed the same detachment from humanity that Manhattan eventually did, it would be very bad for his friends and the human race – whose survival was by no means assured from extra-dimensional (ED) threats, not to mention ET.

The whole idea of an Aptitude test was pure stupidity anyway. There were so many better ways to determine someone's preference for a certain field, unfortunately, the technology to do so was perhaps a few decades away at Earth's current level of technical development in the cognitive sciences.

Willow must have seen the expression on his face. "Am I gonna get a bad result?" her face suddenly scrunching in concern.

"No, you won't get a bad result, that's just not in you, Wils," Xander grinned at her, the compliment causing a blush on her face, "it's just these people can't tell from one multiple-choice test what we're gonna be doing for the rest of our lives."

"I'm kinda curious to find out what sort of career I could have." Her eyebrows rose pointedly at him.

"Oh no, I'm not gonna ruin the surprise for you," Xander held up his hands wearily. "I draw the line as to my friend's personal lives; unless it involves world-endage stuff, no poking into the future. And why do you want to know? It'd suck all the spontaneity of being young."

"We're not gonna be young forever," the red-head pointed out.

"Exactly, so enjoy this time while it lasts," Xander nodded and gestured for her to continue the test. Willow sighed and put pencil back to paper. Cordelia passed at that moment, filling out her test on a clipboard looking quite serious as she did so, and he was surprised at the lack of her usual groupies. She stopped for a moment, looked at him with a raised eyebrow and a slight appreciative smile seeing his true form, and walked on.

Xander inwardly sighed, Cordelia's obvious 'attraction' to him left him with a mixed bag of feelings; _horror_ – she was No.1 on their childhood enemies list, and still to an extent was, with her unpleasant personality and verbally insulting spars_, interest and lust_ – hey, he was a guy, she was a hot gal with a body that made men go incoherent, _attraction and dare he say it 'love'_ – the fact that Cordelia was reminding his Manhattan aspect somewhat of his lover, Laurie aka Silk Spectre 2 from the Watchmen-verse also further reinforced it. Then there was also what he knew thanks to his abilities – Cordelia was not what she appeared, and she seemed to be dropping more and more of her Queen Bitch persona.

"Do I like shrubs?" Buffy suddenly asked, looking up from her question paper and breaking Xander's introspection.

"Answer yes," he said frowning suddenly.

"Okay," Buffy pencilled it in, and then turned to Willow. "What did you put?"

"I came down on the side of shrubs."

"Okay!" Buffy grinned but suddenly turned frustrated, clenching her fists. "Uhhh! I shouldn't even be bothering with this. It's all mootville for me. No matter what my aptitude test says, we already know my deal."

"Your destiny does not have to stop you from going to college, Buff," Xander pointed out, with a distracted air, his 'copy' currently at the SGC had just overseen the transfer of Jolinar from Captain Carter to Major Sylvia Gilson; an Army Combat Engineer out of Ft. Carlson in Colorado Springs who had been afflicted with cancer. 'He' was currently assisting the Tok'ra symbiote in destroying the cancer cells and switching off the faulty gene responsible.

"You're kidding?" she asked with shock.

"Not at all," he grinned mysteriously. "You'll see."

* * *

**SGC**

Xander stood patiently looking out at the Stargate from the Conference Room and waited. It seemed that SG1 (with a recovered Captain Carter, now without a Tok'ra in her head) had on their first official mission since his makeover of the SGC and the formation of the UE, hit a bit of a snag. They had unwittingly abetted a murderer on their mission and been abruptly snatched away via transporter beam by a race called the Taldor, and incarcerated on a prison planet.

The Taldor, according to SG9 – the 'armed' diplomatic team of the SGC sent to negotiate for SG1's release – were extremely xenophobic, to the point where they never even let outsiders view their faces. And they also had an absolute zeal for draconian justice that made Doc Manhattan's fellow Watchman Rosharch look timid in comparison. Zero tolerance from the most minor crime of theft all the way up to cold blooded murder, no appeals process – all were rounded up and sent to the prison planet of Hadante.

General Hammond himself had gone through the Stargate on his first trip ever off of Earth to try and pressure SG1's release from the Taldor. The only help that had been, was to reveal that not even the Taldor knew of a way to extract prisoners from Hadante – since the Dailing device was gone from the planet and there had never been a need, and that the prison itself was a subterranean complex with no access possible from space. Not that the Taldor would reveal the gate address of Hadante – so even sending a starship from _New Sparta_ was out of the question. He hadn't quite yet planned to reveal its existence, but SG1 was an integral part of the future.

The Stargate abruptly started spinning and the PA resounded; 'Unscheduled Offworld Activation!"

"Is this them?" General Hammond asked, walking over to the window.

"Yes," Xander nodded, giving a glance into the near future. "They're quite resourceful."

"That they are," Hammond agreed as the unstable vortex of energy settled into a rippling pool in the maw of the Stargate. The General hurried down the staircase that led down into the Control room and after a few moments appeared in the Gateroom as the announcement of SG3's remote code was received.

SG1, only clad in the black conforming undersuits of their armour, and looking rather worse for wear, walked out of the event horizon, followed by an old woman with a stoic expression on her wrinkled face, and carried herself with a strange form of confidence – despite wearing shabby robes.

"Where in the name of heaven did you come from?" Hammond asked curiously.

"Prison actually. We just broke out." Colonel O'Neill was nonchalant in his answer- as if they did this sort of thing every day.

"Well how? Your remote transmitters, armour and weapons have been returned to us. SG9 and I have spent the last two days trying to negotiate your release. With no luck, I might add."

"Well actually we returned via P2A-509." Daniel supplied with a grin.

"Daniel remembered that SG3 would be there sir. Major Warren found us and was good enough to let us borrow a transmitter to let us open the Gate defences." Sam explained.

"And if I may ask?" Hammond pointed to the old woman.

"Oh, I'm sorry. General Hammond, This is Linea." Jack introduced her.

"We wouldn't have gotten out without her sir." Sam explained as Linea nodded in greeting to the General.

"I've never seen such a place. It seems so alien." Linea stared looking around.

"So it was with me, but over time it has become – home." Teal'C said with a nod to her.

"General Hammond, sir, with your permission I'd like to offer Linea quarters here at the base." Sam asked politely but seriously. Hammond glanced at Jack to see his take on the situation; who in turn looked unsure. "There is a great deal she has to teach us. In fact I brought back samples of a root that with Linea's activators can generate…"

"I'll take that into consideration, Captain. In the meantime, I'd like you all to report to the infirmary, including your guest." Hammond interrupted. Daniel and Teal'C walked off at that and then Hammond turned to Linea. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, it's merely precautionary."

"I would do the same," Linea declared.

"We'll debrief after you've all had a chance to rest."

"Yes, sir," nodded Jack, and took Linea's hand, "Thank you." The woman only smiled and nodded, and strode off with dignity after Captain Carter. Xander watched her go, considering what needed to be done about this.

* * *

General Hammond sat in his chair at the conference table, wearily rubbing the bridge of his nose as he could feel the first stages of a headache approaching. He listened to the former prisoner of Hadante, named Simian, who had hitched a ride on the outgoing wormhole unbeknownst to SG1, and was caught lurking around SG3's offworld camp.

The picture he had just painted of who Linea really was horrifying. She was the Destroyer of Worlds; a woman who used diabolical science to exterminate life, wherever she went, for reasons only known to Linea herself. He inwardly cursed the legendary bad luck of SG1. Hammond looked to O'Neill and then to Xander.

"Linea is gone," Xander said next. "I knew what and who she was, saw what she was going to do. The sheer amount of life that she has extinguished is enough to make Hitler look amateurish. So on her first night here, I snuck into her quarters unseen and 'reset' her."

"Reset?" O'Neill asked in confusion.

"I essentially formatted her long term memories, those that made her into the Destroyer," Xander explained. "She is now Kira, a scientist who believes she was wrongfully imprisoned when a lab accident caused the release of a plague. She helped SG1 and herself to escape and agreed to work for us, since she has no home."

Hammond felt the headache finally blossom at hearing that. "You're assuming we even want to have her around knowing how she achieved her brilliant levels of science."

"That's hypocritical," Xander snapped. "By that reasoning, Doc Frasier must stop using more than half of her medical knowledge, since it was attained from less than desirable events and experiments in our history."

"So ends justify the means?"

"Heck no," retorted Xander. "But how many people will die in the future, because we, in our moral self-righteousness, decided that the scientific knowledge in Kira's head was sullied, dirty. She has a biochemistry skill that is light years beyond us, how many cures to the diseases on the planet are in her head? Hmmm? And if I hadn't done what I did, Linea would've escaped somehow, she's a genius…she could pull it off with all that Captain Carter had given her access to perfect the Cold Fusion. We would've been responsible for unleashing Linea onto an entire Galaxy full of worlds."

"You've made your point, Xander," Hammond sighed, holding up his hands to halt the superhuman. "I'll need to think carefully about this. And _if_ I decide to integrate 'Kira' into this command, we'll need to be very cautious about it. The other scientists will not want to work with her if it gets out who she was."

* * *

**Sunnydale High**

Xander sat in the corner seat of the Science Lab, and stared at the others who had seemingly been evaluated to consider scientific careers. Jonathan Levinson, a quite short, skinny, rather average looking guy, with messy hair. He vividly recalled saving the short stuff from the demon mummy girl Ampata, when she had just been about to kill him with a 'kiss of death' that would have literally drained the life right out of him. Warren Mears sat a few stools away; he was almost a clone of Jonathan, except the former was taller and had possessed rather smoother features and had a look of perpetual boredom on his face.

Both had been rather surprised at Xander's presence.

"What are you doing here Harris?" Warren had asked.

"Same thing you are," Xander had replied shortly.

"You're kidding?" Jonathan blinked in astonishment.

"Nope, apparently the test revealed that I'm a budding atomic physicist."

Both nerds of Sunnydale High had looked at each other for a moment. "But…but…you're…"

"The underachieving class clown?" Xander responded with a raised eyebrow for emphasis.

"No offense…but yeah," Jonathan looked on in amazement.

"Let's just say I have my reasons for that behavior and leave it at that."

And that had been the extent of their conversation during the whole twenty minutes of waiting for their Career Representative to show up. Finally an unfamiliar man in his fifties with a leather briefcase entered, wearing a suit in a rather casual fashion, with no tie and loose shirt. His graying hair gave him a rather distinguished look, instead of making him look old.

"Greetings,' the man said with a nod, putting down his briefcase and opening it. "I'm Professor Woodrow from UC Sunnydale's Physics and Chemistry Department. I'm here to enlighten you on what fields of science are currently and will enjoy prominence in the near future. With hard work, brains, and a bit of luck, you could find yourself a successful career as an Organic Chemist (one of the hardest fields there is) or a Structural Engineer even." He walked around and handed out a rather thick brochure to each of them.

"Now UC Sunnydale can't accommodate study in every scientific field out there, listed in this brochure you will find what we do offer. With that in mind there is also a list of which Universities offer courses that we don't. Science can be a very lucrative field as well, depending on how you approach it. If you go straight into the private sector, you will probably have a larger salary and royalties from any patent. Government sector work on the other hand traditionally pays less, however, you will work with the cutting edge in technology that's out there in terms of military R&D…"

Woodrow continued for a good hour, explaining the ins and outs of Science. Xander listened to it all with only half an ear, while the rest of his mind was pondering the moral situation with Kira, and yet another part of him was laughing at the face that Buffy had pulled when told she had been evaluated as a Law Enforcement Professional…Willow had been mysteriously 'unevaluated' but after some careful checking by one of his copies; it turned out that a _Microsoft _Rep had gotten a hold of her…seems her computer 'hacking' skills had finally paid dividends. Cordelia on the other had been rated as a 'Personal Shopper' and 'Motivational Speaker'; both were rather fitting…Queen C knew instantly what was 'hot' and not, and had an innate sense for style, the latter career was also a understandable; her acid tongue and the high social intelligence factor could certainly be turned to 'Light side of the Force'.

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A fully fuming Buffy strode briskly through the cemetery, next to her was a cross-legged Xander, speeding alongside her in mid-air with a relaxed expression on his face, carefully surveying the area.

"Buffy! Xander! Slow down, please." The subject of Buffy's current ire was practically running to keep up.

"Giles, we have work to do, remember? Get with the program." Buffy snipped.

They stopped at the mausoleum that Buffy had confronted a pair of thieving vampires the previous night. She had managed to dust one, but the other had escaped with something. When told, Giles had admonished Buffy; that she should've been more observing leading to her current state of mind.

"You're behaving remarkably im-immaturely." Giles leaned on his knees getting his breath back.

"You know why? I _am _immature. I'm a teen. I have yet to mature."

"I was (pant) simply offering some (pant) constructive criticism."

"No! You were harsh! God, you act like I picked this gig. But remember, I'm the picked."

"What you have (pant) is more than (pant) a gig. (pant) It's a sacred duty. (pant) Which (pant) shouldn't prevent you from e-e-eventually procuring some (pant) more (pant) gainful f-f-form of employment. Uh-uh-uh, such as I did."

"Uh, Giles, it's one thing to be a Watcher and a librarian. They go together like chicken and...Xander some help?"

"Use bread and butter," the superhuman grinned.

"Thanks…like bread and butter. The point is, no one blinks an eye if you want to spend all your days with books. What am I supposed to do? Carve stakes for a nursery?"

They entered the dark mausoleum and scanned around, Xander flared his blue body brighter to provide illumination.

"Um, point taken. I must, however, admit, I-I've never really...Well, now there's a thought, have you ever considered law enforcement?" Buffy just gave him a flat look of disbelief, as if her Watcher had grown a second head. She just pointed to a depressed section of the wall in the mausoleum which had been broken open. "Oh, yes…well, it's a reliquary. Used to house items of religious significance. Most commonly a finger or some other body part from a saint."

"Freaky doesn't even begin to describe that tradition," Xander's face twisted in distaste. Giles in the blue light spotted the name above the reliquary.

"Du Lac. Oh dear, oh dear."

"I hate when you say that." Buffy grumbled.

"Josephus du Lac was buried here. He belonged to a religious sect that was excommunicated by the Vatican at the turn of the century."

"Excommunicated and sent to Sunnydale. There's a guy big with the sinning."

"You remember the book that was stolen from the library by a vampire a few weeks ago?" Giles suddenly asked. Xander remembered that happening during the Billy Fordham situation…when the now dead ex-flame of Buffy had pretended to stake a vamp…giving it a free run for some thievery on the library.

"Yeah."

"It was written by Du Lac. Damn it! I let it slip my mind with all the excitement."

"I'm guessing it wasn't a 'Taste of the Vatican' cookbook." Buffy's tone was dripping with the sarcasm.

"No, the, uh, book was said to contain rituals and spells that reap unspeakable evil. However, it was written in archaic Latin so that nobody but the sect members could understand it."

"So, everything's cool then."

"It's not. First the book was taken from the library, and now the vampires have stolen something from Du Lac's tomb."

"You think they figured out how to read the book?"

"Yes, they have," Xander suddenly said with a faraway look. "They took the Du Lac Cross, which Giles will explain to us in thirty two minutes," He flicked his fingers and all three of them vanished from the mausoleum.

* * *

**Sunnydale High School Library**

A rather disgruntled Giles emerged from the stacks of the library carrying a thick National Geographic magazine, which had a picture of an ornate golden cross on its front cover. Despite himself he looked at his watch and sighed, _thirty two minutes indeed_, he thought. Xander stood waiting next to a seated Buffy and Willow, all patiently waiting with expectant expressions.

He cleared his throat. "Uh, yes well, Du Lac…was both a, a... a theologian and a mathematician. This article describes an invention of his, which he called 'The Du Lac Cross'. The cross was more than a mere symbol," he handed the open magazine to Willow for her perusal, "it was used to understand certain mystical texts, to, uh, decipher hidden meanings and so forth."

"So you're saying these vampires went to all this hassle for your basic decoder ring?"

"Uh, actually, yes, I, I suppose I am." Giles was rather startled at the blunt metaphor from Buffy.

"According to this, Du Lac destroyed every cross except the one buried with him." Willow explained after briefly scanning the article.

"Why destroy your own work?" Buffy shrugged.

"Perhaps he feared what might happen if it fell into the wrong hands." Giles was worriedly pacing.

"What could happen if it did fall in the wrong hands?" Willow asked worriedly.

Xander emerged from gazing at the various quantum realities and said, "Within the next few days Drusilla will return to full strength."

"Are you sure Xander?" Giles said intently.

"Yes, ninety three percent of realities ahead of us results in that outcome."

"And the Du Lac cross and book are the instruments used?"

"Yes," Xander nodded.

"So it's Spike behind the vamp that slipped out of my grasp," Buffy frowned in irritation.

"We must discover the exact method used, which means learning what's in the book before they do. Which means we can expect to be here later tonight."

"Goody! Research party!" Willow grinned clapping her hands.

"Will, you need a life outside of all this." Xander shook his head in bemusement at her enthusiasm.

"Speaking of," Buffy got up, "I really have to bail, but I promise I'll be back bright and early tomorrow and ready to slay."

"This is a matter of some urgency, Buffy." Giles said grimly.

"I realize that. Well, you have to admit, I kinda lack in the book area. I mean, you guys are the brains, I'd only be here for moral support anyway."

"You do have brains, Buff," Xander countered. "It's merely a different kind of brains…a visual and bodily intelligence."

"My point exactly, kicking demon butt doesn't really go with kicking book," Buffy looked at Willow intently at this point.

"She should go. Y-y'know, gather her strength." Willow was uncertain and now looking pointedly at Xander and shaking her head.

"Perhaps you're right. There may be fierce battles ahead." Giles was oblivious to the byplay going on, staring into a book. Buffy wasted no time, giving a knowing Xander a pleading look, before making tracks out of the library.

Xander sighed watching her go for her ice skating rendezvous with Angel. That probability line was still going strong it seemed. Hopefully he could balance what had to happen with a lot of good.

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Xander emerged from the library cage a few hours later with a First Aid kit and handed it over to Willow who was tending to a wincing Buffy, who had hurt her knee falling on the ice. The reason for her fall was nothing as innocuous as slipping on her skates.

"This guy was hard-core, Giles. And Angel was power-freaked by that ring."

The guy in question was according to Buffy's description, supernaturally strong, only had one eye, and looked like a stereotypical biker – who was thankfully very dead after Buffy blindsided him with Slayer powered kick to the throat, still wearing her skates.

Giles, who was examining said Ring that had belonged to the biker guy said, "I'm afraid he was not overreacting. This ring is worn only by members of the Order of Taraka. It's a society of deadly assassins dating back to King Solomon." He sat heavily with a troubled look on his face.

"They are here at the behest of Spike, to distract us in dealing with assassination attempts," Xander explained.

"Blast, this is just what we do not need at the moment," Giles gave a thoughtful glance at Xander, then looked at Buffy. "I think the best thing we can do is to find a secure location. Somewhere out of the way you can go until we decide on the best course of action. And Xander can keep an invisible copy of himself with you at all times."

"Okay, now you and Angel have both said to head for the hills. Are you saying I can't handle this, that I'm not strong enough to fight these people?"

"You cannot fight a bullet travelling at supersonic velocity, Buffy, only I can," Xander was earnest.

"They use guns?" Buffy asked in shock.

"They use anything available," Giles nodded. "They're a breed apart, Buffy. U-unlike vampires they have no earthly desires, they find a target, and, uh... they eliminate it. You can kill as many of them as you like, it won't make any difference. Where there's one, there will be another, and another. They won't stop coming until the job is done. Each one of them works alone. His own way. Some are human, some... a-are not. Y-you won't know who they are until they strike."

"Do you know who or what they are Xander?" Buffy asked uncertainly.

"Yes," he nodded. "I could take them out right now, but it still doesn't solve the cause of the problem. The Order will just send more and more dangerous assassins after you. Spike has to cancel the contract, it's that or he has to die."

"I'll take option number two," Buffy practically growled in anger.

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An invisible and insubstantial Xander trailed in Buffy's wake the next day during school, shadowing her every move. He'd been especially vigilant when she had gone home, because of the assassin moving in next door by killing Mrs Kalish, Buffy's neighbour. But luckily the guy made entirely of mealworms had merely bided his time and made no moves as yet, he was clearly still in recon mode. Xander had also made sure to keep a constant look out into the future, but limited it to three minutes so he had ample warning whilst causing the least possible deviation due to the Observer effect.

Buffy was clearly wigged out and skittish as she walked down one of the school hallways filled with students going to and fro. She occasionally rubbed the back of her neck uncomfortably, clearly she sensed him to some extent, but even though she knew he was there, it didn't stop her from getting the 'hair rising on the back of the neck' feeling. She startled violently when a boy barged through the doors in the hall in front of her. He could see her worriedly looking at every person who just happened to face her way, and her paranoia was turning those faces into the considering stares of potential assassins.

"Buffy a locker is about to bang behind you, it's not a gun," he whispered into her ear.

She nodded and turned around…sure enough, a red headed guy slammed his locker closed abruptly and charged off to his next class, an intent look on his face. Xander was himself startled as he recognized him from the future…it was Oz.

It was a decidedly dull day and work being a bodyguard, especially when Xander _Prime_ shared classes with Buffy. Having two copies of himself experiencing the same class seemed like a waste, but since he was being Bodyguard Xander, he made sure not to lose focus and slip up, just in case that insane Police Recruiter barged into the class guns blazing.

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School had ended for the day and Buffy was heading home. Just as she was about to turn onto Revello Drive, she stopped abruptly and changed her mind. She turned around and walked away, Bodyguard Xander trailing behind sighed – she clearly didn't want to risk an attack on her home. When her revised destination became apparent he sighed again, he truly wished he could intervene in this probability line, but he truly didn't want to have to tangle with the so-called Powers-That-Be and their preparations for their precious vampire Champion.

It honestly surprised him that those lofty pricks hadn't sent that Balance Demon of theirs to play mind games with him. But then again, he was hardly an Extra-Dimensional being, he was an extremely evolved human and his abilities had no basis in 'magic' or Extra-Dimensional energies, so he fell only under the purview of God Herself, like all other relatively normal humans.

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**Library, Sunnydale High**

"I wish there was more we could do," Willow complained, whilst sitting at the library counter and going through a volume.

"We're doing all that we can." Giles said patiently, putting on his glasses after a thorough cleaning. "We must try and find out what was in that stolen book, Xander is keeping an eye on her, literally at all times."

"I've never seen Buffy like that. She just took off." Willow looked extremely worried.

"Wills, Giles is right, Bodyguard Xander is with her every step of the way," Xander Prime said kindly, putting a warm, tingly blue hand on her shoulder reassuringly.

"Where is she at the moment?" Giles asked.

"Not at home, the assassins already have it covered, all I'll say is she's at a safe place."

"Xander…"

"Giles we could also be under remote surveillance, which I would not be able to sense, so I will keep her location to myself in an unsecured area."

"Ah…well good thinking." Giles looked abashed at himself for not being more cautious.

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The next morning Xander stood over Buffy's sleeping form in Angel's apartment and surveyed the place the vampire with a soul called home. It was sparsely furnished. A modern desk strewn with papers was against the far wall with a dozen old pictures hanging on the wall around it. The floor was bare concrete, and the only things that gave the place a bit of a break from the monotony was an ivory statue enclosed in a glass display case, and an elegant antique armoire.

Buffy was ensconced in the comfy looking bedsheets and looking very peaceful. It was such a shame that it was about to be shattered. He nudged her on the shoulder, she stirred and woke up…just in time to dodge the very sharp hatchet by rolling to the far side of the bed as it struck the pillow where her head had been.

The hatchet was retrieved by Buffy's would be killer, and Xander gazed sadly at the beautiful girl wielding it. She had a light brown complexion and long braided hair pulled away from her face, which hinted at an African ancestry, but he knew she was from the Caribbean. She was dressed very attractively, midriff baring black top, tight trousers that hugged her legs, and she was distinctly not petite in body tone.

The Caribbean girl swung again and hit the mattress when Buffy sidestepped the blow. Buffy did a very impressive flip over her attacker's back and onto the floor behind her, ready to fight.

"You must be number two!" snapped Buffy in determination.

Xander sighed, while he wanted to see how the two of them measured up, he didn't want a fight to the death, especially over what was nothing more than a misunderstanding.

Before the Caribbean girl could swing the hatchet again, Xander grabbed both her and Buffy in telekinetic grips and hovered them in the air away from each other.

"Hey! Xander, what the deal?!" griped Buffy flailing uselessly in mid-air.

The other girl took being manhandled in her stride and threw the hatchet at Buffy. Xander admired her improvisation, but stopped the weapon with a thought, and sent it soaring away to peg into the wall and out of reach.

He dropped his invisibility when they were a good two meters apart from each other and he was standing between them.

The other girl gasped at the sight of Xander, and it stunned her into stopping her flailing. Buffy was by now folding her arms in mid-air and giving him her best glare.

"Now, while I would like to see you two lovely ladies duke it out," Xander grinned. "There's no mud and I'm afraid the fact that you're both aiming to kill each other is unacceptable."

"Xander, what's going on, she attacked me, she's another assassin…"

"No, she's not," countered Xander and turned to the other girl with a kind smile on his face. "Please Miss, introduce yourself."

"Ye'll get no answer from me, demon!"

"Now don't be rude, Miss, I'm not a demon," Xander grinned. "We have a case of mistaken identity here and I have no wish to kill you. Please, your name and full title."

The Caribbean girl tried to get free, but she had no purchase on thin air, she was consequently helpless and let out an explosive sigh. "Fine, I am Kendra! De Vampire Slayer!"

Buffy could only stare in disbelief at the other girl. "Okay, one more time. You're the who?!"

"I'm de Slayer."

"Nice cover story. But here's a tip: you might wanna try it on someone who's not the real Slayer."

"Ya can't stop me! Even if ya or yer pet demon kill me, anodder Slayer will be sent to take me place."

"Could you stop with the Slayer thing? I'm the damn Slayer! And Xander is not a demon!"

"Nonsense! Dere is but one, and I am she. And how could he not be one, with such power…"

"Ladies, ladies, play nice," Xander looked from one to the other. "Kendra, you were sent here by who?"

"By my Watcher."

"To do what?" He asked.

"To do my duty. I am here to kill vampires."

"So you are both Vampire Slayers," he concluded. "Yes, yes, I know there can be only one…but I think we should take this to Buffy's Watcher. This conversation needs to happen in front of him."

Xander snapped his fingers, and he, Buffy, and Kendra vanished from the apartment with a flash of blue light.

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**Library, Sunnydale High**

Kendra was standing at attention in front of Giles, as the Watcher paced back and forth. She would occasionally send a furtive and amazed look at the two glowing nude Xanders standing next to each other, and would also sport a blush on occasion, which was rigidly suppressed and she focused her gaze back on the Watcher like a soldier who was in an inspection line. It was only when Giles had confirmed that Xander was indeed not a demon but merely a whole flight of rungs up the human ladder of evolution, so to speak, that she had believed it.

"And your Watcher is, i-is Sam Zabuto, you say?" Giles asked intently.

"Yes, sir." Kendra confirmed.

"We've never met, but he, he's, he's very well-respected."

"What, so he's a real guy? As in non-fictional?" Buffy asked in amazement, leaning on a chair with her left hand and had her right hand on her hip.

"And you are called...?"

"I am de Vampire Slayer."

"You Watcher's did a real number on her personality," Xander Prime looked distinctly irritated. "He means your name, little Miss."

"Oh. Dey call me Kendra. I have no last name, sir."

"Can you say 'stuck in the 80's'?" Buffy said haughtily.

"Buffy, please. Uh, there's obviously some, some misunderstanding here."

Willow entered the library at the moment with a smile on her face and practically bouncing. Kendra abruptly marched around Buffy to intercept the red head.

"Hey!" the witch greeted.

"Identify yourself!" Kendra demanded, nearly getting in Willow's face.

Willow was clearly taken aback at the sudden hostility and her smile turned to a frown.

"Back off, pink ranger! This is my friend." Buffy said and pulled Kendra back.

"Friend?" Kendra looked confused at this.

"Yeah. As in person you hang with? Amigo?"

"I don't understand."

In exasperation Buffy turned to Giles, "You try. I'm tapped." And promptly sat down with a huff.

"Uh-uh, Kendra, uh, there are a-a-a few people, uh, like Xander, who, who know Buffy's identity. Willow is another one of them, a-a-and they also, um, spend time together, uh, socially."

"And you allow dis, sir?" Kendra was clearly still confused.

"Well, uh..."

"But de Slayer must work in secret for security."

"Slaying on the hellmouth…" Xander Prime said.

"…is not a one person job, Kendra," Bodyguard Xander finished. "If not for me, and Buffy's other friends, she would be dead a few times over. However, Buffy did die once, but I revived her with CPR, hence, why you were activated as a Slayer. Therefore, where there was one Slayer, now there are two."

"Oh, good Lord!" Giles exclaimed in astonishment. "Clearly it didn't matter how long you were gone Buffy."

"She died?" Kendra asked, looking slightly weirded out.

"Just a little." Buffy confirmed weakly, clearly not enjoying remembering her fateful trip into the Master's lair.

"This is completely unprecedented! I'm quite flummoxed." Giles looked like someone had knocked his intellectual world askew suddenly, and sat.

"What's the flum? It's a mistake, she isn't supposed to be here, she goes home!" Buffy groused and turned to Kendra. "Look, no offence, I really don't mean this personally, but I'm not dead, and frankly having you around creeps me out just a little bit."

"I cannot just leave." Kendra was indignant. "I was sent here for a reason. Mr. Zabuto said all de signs indicate dat a very dark power is about to rise in Sunnydale."

"And what's your great plan for finding this dark power? You just gonna attack people randomly till you find a bad one?" Buffy's tone dripped with sarcasm.

"Of course not." Kendra retorted.

"Then why the hell did you attack me?"

"I tought you were a vampire." Kendra closed her eyes for a moment; clearly her own ire was also up behind her stoic exterior.

"Oh, a swing and a miss for the rookie."

"I had good reason to tink you were. Did I not see you kissing a vampire?"

Willow immediately stood up in defence of her friend. "Buffy would never do that!" But then realized the whole Angel boyfriend thing. "Except for that sometimes you do that." She turned to Kendra. "But only with Angel." Back to Buffy "Right?" And sat again.

"Yes! Right. Look, you saw me with Angel, and he is a vampire, but he's good."

"Angel? You mean Angelus? I've read about him. He is a monster." Kendra said flatly.

"No, no, no, he's, he's good now." Giles was still rather rattled from the whole two Slayers deal.

"Oh for cryin' out loud," sighed Xander Prime. "Kendra, Angelus was cursed by Gypsies; he now has a human soul and is fighting evil alongside us on the hellmouth. He is an ally."

"I cannot believe you. He looked to me just like anodder animal when I..."

"When you what? What did you do to him?" Buffy was bristling with anger and now was directly in Kendra's face.

"I..."

"What did you do?!"

Kendra spilled the beans and Bodyguard Xander didn't hesitate for a moment and teleported them out of the Library.

* * *

Willy's Bar, was an establishment that catered to every species of demon on the hellmouth during the night, and every kind of human lowlife during the day. Hence, its appearance was distinctly 'worn', from fights, gunshots, and blood stains from various demons and vampires the bar served. It wasn't apparent to the naked eye, but Xander saw way beyond the traditional visual spectrum.

So he clearly didn't relish being in the place at all.

"Angel?!" called Buffy, but no answer. In fact, there was no one at all in the bar, since it was too early in the morning for the typical human clientele to arrive.

Kendra walked briskly into a back room where a there was a cage where all the various sundry supplies for the bar was kept. It was currently in full daylight from the eastern exposure windows. Kendra had gone for a rather drawn out form of death for Angel.

"No ashes." She declared after looking into the open cage.

"What?" Buffy asked.

"When a vampire combusts, he leaves ashes."

"Yeah, I know the drill." Buffy declared in irritation.

"Then I did not kill him."

"And I don't need to kill _you_."

From another door the proprietor of the seedy establishment emerged. He was a balding dark haired skinny guy, with a look of perpetual 'shiftyness' about him. This was Willy. A guy you went to if you had cash and needed dirty info. He was also deep into the human criminal underworld as well; gun running, extortion, racketeering, luckily he was never party to murder – so Xander had felt no need to go Rosharch on the guy and left him undisturbed.

"Whoa, there's a lot of tension in this room…ah shit!"

Xander had him mid-air in rather snug telekinetic grip in a trice.

"Nice to finally meet you, Willy."

"Crap, it's the Desnudo Muerte!" shrieked Willy.

"This is what I get for letting that Mexican vamp get away," Xander sighed in irritation, he had only let the thing go for some psychological warfare on the demon community, the result being he was saddled with that ridiculous nickname. Oh, it was inevitable that the demon community would get wind of him sooner or later, so he did on his terms. He was after all a walking WMD to vampires and evil demons. It was already ingrained in the demons that if you saw blue light suddenly appear when attempting to kill or feed on a human…you were dead.

Buffy rather failed to hide her amusement. Kendra was all business.

"Dis one is dirty! I can feel it!"

"That's really good for you, Percepto Girl," Buffy jibed to Kendra. "Where's Angel, Willy?"

"My buddy Angel? You think I'd let him fry? I saved him in the nick! He was about five minutes away from being a crispy critter." Xander sensed it was truth.

"Where'd he go?" demanded Buffy.

"Uh, he said he was gonna stay underground. You know, recuperate. Argghl…"

"You're lying, Willy," Xander said idly, pulling a slight Darth Vader 'Force Strangle' and letting go.

"I swear on my mother's grave! Should something fatal happen to her, God forbid."

"Blood moved to the creative part of your brain as you answered, hence, you're full of shit, Willy, try again!" Xander tightened his telekinetic grip around Willy's chest.

"Arggh, I can't…I'll be killed…" whined Willy.

"I don't need your cooperation, Willy," Xander stepped closer to within arms reach. "I can read your mind with but a touch…if whoever threatened you comes calling…just blame me."

"And then you'll kill 'em?"

"If it's a vamp or demon, then yes."

"Okay, okay, I'll talk…its Spike; he put out a feeler to everyone to keep an eye out for Angel, and would pay big bucks for it. Angel came calling for word on the Order of Teraka and why they were in town, but he was ambushed by this chick and stuck in the cage." He indicated Kendra. "I took the opportunity to make a quick buck."

"So you saved Angel from sunlight, only to give him to Spike instead." Buffy remarked angrily.

"Yeah, but he only paid half of what he promised, dumped the rest in sewer water," groused Willy surly, but then brightened. "Luckily money dries quickly enough."

Xander let go and Willy promptly fell to the ground in a heap, and awkwardly got up.

"Let's go," Xander turned around and walked away, the two Slayers following in his wake.

"I, I have to ask." Willy asked quickly "Have you three considered modelling? I have a friend with a camera? Strictly high-class nude work. You know, art photographs. But naked. It should be no problem for you, Blue."

Xander, being male, was momentarily stunned at the mental image of appearing as such between two such lovely ladies. But then the momentary male fantasy was dispelled, and since one was his best friend…and the other someone who he would come to respect in the future…he gave a deceptively gentle gesture and promptly Willy was flung away to crash rather painfully with his own bar.

The two Slayers smiled to him in thanks, and with a blue flash of light the three vanished.

888888888888

**Sunnydale High Library**

"I can't believe this!" Buffy shouted to both Xanders angrily.

"I'm afraid Xander has made his point abundantly clear, Buffy, and I happen to agree with it." Giles shook his head sadly and took off his glasses.

"How can you do this to Buffy, Xander?" Willow asked in a disappointed fashion.

Both Xander Prime and Bodyguard folded their arms, a dark expression entering their features and their solid blue eyes regarded both his friends with anger.

"I already walk a fine line," Xander Prime argued. "I thought you understood this, you especially Willow."

"The Powers That Be do not bother me because I 'see' what they plan with regards to Extra-Dimensional Threats on Earth, and agree with the long term goal they have in mind, and my powers have nothing to with magic." Bodyguard Xander spoke next. "Revealing Spike's hideout to you now, will cause a Butterfly effect that I and they do not want."

"If I help Good too much, then it will give Evil a blank cheque," Xander Prime was quite grim as he said this, "and if that's one thing I see in the future, is that we don't want that to happen…ever!"

"But this is Angel…!"

"I can't play favourites, Buffy! When the time is right, you will know, that I promise, Angel will not die!"

Xander Prime's tone was final and he vanished with a flash, leaving Bodyguard Xander behind. Buffy just moped darkly.

"Now, that we've sorted out this, Kendra, I-I've, uh, conferred with your Watcher, Mr. Zabuto, and, uh, we both agree that, uh, until this matter with Spike and Drusilla has been resolved that you two should work together.

"Oh, that'll be a treat." Buffy griped still glaring at an unfazed Xander.

"So, you believe dat Spike is attempting to revive dis Drusilla to health?" Kendra asked eagerly.

"Yes, well, I-I-I-I think that's the, uh, the dark power that your, your Watcher re-referred to. You see, uh, you see Drusilla's not only evil, she's, uh, well, she's also quite mad, and-and-and-and if she's restored to her full health, then, uh, well, there's no, absolutely no telling what she might do."

"Den we will stop Spike." She said simply.

"Ooo, good plan, let's go, charge!" Buffy mocked.

"Buffy..." Giles sighed.

"It's a little more complicated than that, John Wayne."

"Yes, I'm, I'm afraid it is. You see, Spike has also called out the Order of Taraka to keep Buffy out of the way."

"De assassins? I read of dem in de writings of Dramius." Kendra said knowledgably.

"Oh, really? W-w-which volume?" Giles looked pleasantly delighted.

"I believe it was six, sir."

"Um, how do you know all this?" Buffy asked despite her dark mood.

"From me studies."

"So, obviously you have a lot of free time."

"I study because it is required." Giles smiled at Kendra. "The Slayer handbook insists on it."

"There's a Slayer handbook?" Willow asked in astonishment and curiosity combined.

"Wait. Handbook? What handbook? How come I don't have a handbook?" Buffy was indignant.

"Is there a T-shirt, too?" Willow got a pointed look from Buffy, that said '_Not helping'_. "Cause that would be cool..."

"After meeting you, Buffy, I realized that, uh, the handbook would be of no use in your case." Giles answered delicately.

"Well, what do you mean it would be of no use in my case? Wha-what's wrong with my case?"

"Uh, Kendra, um, perhaps you'd like to show me the, the part in, uh, Dramius Six where, uh, uh, where it refers to the Order of Taraka. Really, I-I, I seem to have never been able to get through that book. It was a bit stodgy."

Giles guided the newer Slayer away from the group and into the stacks.

"It was difficult. All dose footnotes." Giles and Kendra laughed out loud and vanished into the stacks.

Buffy, now feeling double disgruntled, walked out of the library with Willow and Bodyguard Xander in tow, the latter becoming invisible to everyone else but his two friends.

"Hello, and welcome to planet pocket protector." Buffy mocked.

"The Slayer Handbook is incredibly dull, Buffy, even the Doc Manhattan part of me would fall asleep reading it." Xander explained.

"That bad, huh?" Willow glanced back to the trailing Xander.

"Yup. That's why Giles gives you the cliffnotes version when you train with him."

"Oh, well, that reminds me Buffy, Principal Snyder was snooping round after you earlier." Willow informed her.

"Eee. Career fair." Buffy winced. "Better show the flag and all that."

8888888888888888888

Near the students lounge and branching out along the various hallways, were specific stands each devoted to a particular career. Buffy and Willow idly walked past each slowly with interest in the various jobs on offer. Xander was shadowing them at a few feet away; he wanted to give the girls some space after being so short with them.

"My tests say that I should look into law enforcement," Buffy rolled her eyes in exasperation, "and environmental design."

"Environmental design. That's landscaping, right?" Willow queried.

"I checked the 'shrub' box. But landscaping was yesterday, so law

enforcement it is."

They stopped near the steps to the couches in the student's lounge. Buffy's rather paranoid manner spotted someone looking at them. The Slayer grinned and elbowed her friend. "Hey, Will, don't look, okay, but..." And naturally Willow looked. "No, don't look! That guy over there is totally checking you

out."

Xander glanced in the direction and noticed that Oz was there. The red haired, monosyllabic, all around cool guy, and werewolf (though he didn't know it yet), was surveying Willow with a nonchalant, assessing stare. Xander thought he was a generally decent guy, a good match for Willow, and considered that perhaps he should nip the werewolf issues in the bud when Werewolf Oz crossed path with the Scoobies, by giving Oz the meditation training to suppress the wolf when the time came.

"Oh, that's Oz. He's expressing computer nerd solidarity." Willow shrugged it off nervously.

Oz for his part noticed that he was spotted and came over.

"Really? Then why is he on his way over here right now?" Buffy smiled with a wink. Willow was quite surprised at this turn of events. "Told you!" Buffy made a discreet exit and Xander trailed after her. It would be good to have Oz in the group soon.

Buffy walked to the centre of the lounge where the Law Enforcement Booth was. She signed her name and joined the group of fifteen or so students who had also rated similar careers.

Xander saw the events of the next few minutes and judged carefully where to stand, a good line of sight on both Buffy and the rather pale overweight Policewoman with the nametag 'Patrice' on her chest, acting as a recruiting officer. Xander carefully scanned and catalogued every weapon she had on her, which was a fair number…he rather wished he could wipe the mental image of her small hold out dagger encased in plastic tube, which had been stored in her…well, let's just say no one would look there.

Patrice, the recruitment officer, undercover Tarakan assassin, picked up the clipboard and looked it over.

"Alright, listen up, and answer when I call your name. Buffy Summers."

Buffy raised her hand in reflex.

Patrice calmly put down the clipboard and in a flash had drawn her Glock service pistol and aimed it at Buffy. Xander gave a sharp two fingered gesture, and the pistol promptly got a mind of its own, breaking the grip of the surprised assassin, and soaring into the air where it disassembled into its component pieces. Xander let go, letting the pieces rain onto the floor.

The entire lounge could only gape at the seemingly impossible, but Patrice showed her training when in a moment, she drew her backup gun, a revolver, and aimed again. The weapon also flew out of her grip, but Xander didn't disassemble this one.

The revolver, under his complete control, twirled to point directly at Patrice, the hammer pulled back…

Patrice dove to the side as Xander triggered the weapon; the bullet winged the assassin in the arm, leaving a bloody trail, as it dug into the tiled floor of the lounge. Students screamed and began to flee in every direction.

Patrice moved quite quickly for someone her size, leading Xander to suspect there was more to her than met the eye, probably enhanced with magic in some way. He adjusted the gun's aim, but Patrice decided to up the stakes, by drawing a small holdout revolver from her ankle and grabbing a random fleeing student. Of all people, it was Jonathan Levinson.

"Reveal yourself, Mage!" snarled Patrice. "Or this boy gets a bullet…" Xander sighed and with a thought transmuted the small revolver.

The assassin stopped and gaped at the thing now in her hand…instead of holding a lethal weapon to Jonathan's head, she was now holding a flapping trout. She dropped the fish in disgust and pulled a knife from her back, which had been hidden under her shirt. Before she could even bring it to bear on Jonathan's throat...the blade simply disintegrated into powder.

Xander snapped his fingers and abruptly Jonathan was pulled from her grasp, sliding along the smooth floor. Simultaneously, he gave a come hither gesture with his left hand and Patrice flew into the air, towards him and he clasped his hand over her face just as she came into range…with her physically connected to him, he explored her past and future…

Xander's expression turned to disgust and anger… and with affirmation of her past and those she would kill… he had no qualms about his next act. The Tarakan assassin was airborne again and screamed horribly before simply exploding with a muted blue flash in a shower of gore and blood.

8888888888888888888


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**SGC Control Room**

Captain Samantha Carter stood at the glass star map with General Hammond, O'Neill, Daniel, and Teal'c looking on. Sol sat at the centre of the map, and to the north-west, some thousand light years distant another prominent star marked in angry red.

"P5C-629 is located directly in the corridor the Goa'uld used to reach our solar system. This is our best platform for the Seeker Project. Now, the theory is that a Goa'uld ship that magnitude should leave a footprint, even at thrust beyond lightspeed. So we're using the technology we already possess we can determine…"

A flash of blue interrupted her and the nude blue form of Alexander appeared a few feet away from the map.

"Sorry to interrupt," the superhuman said mildly.

"Where ya been?" Jack asked with a frown.

"Dealing with a situation on our fair planet that required all my attention," Xander grinned at them. "So what's been happening here?"

"Well, besides Danny boy getting seduced by a Princess and all of us trapped in our own minds in these techno-cocoon things…"

"I'll read the reports, thank you Colonel, and Jolinar/Major Gilson?"

"She left this morning for the last place she remembered the Tok'ra being, she also has one of our new encrypted subspace com devices, so she can contact us when the Tok'ra High Council agrees to a summit," General Hammond explained.

"Excellent," Xander mused, but further conversation was cut off when alarm klaxons went off and the Stargate erupted into life.

"What the hell…? No one's due back today," Hammond rushed towards the Command console, as the Gate technicians seated there monitored the wormhole formation.

The Gate defences sprang to life, the Iris closing and Adaptive shields flashing over the maw of the Stargate. Finally the wormhole erupted into being with a bright waterlike plasma flare towards the rear of the Gate and settled into a stable event horizon. SFs now in full composite armor suits but in an urban camouflage, and armed with rail rifles, piled in through the blast doors and took up defensive positions before the Gate.

"We have an inbound traveler. No SG signal code." The female Gate tech reported to Hammond.

"_Intruder __alert. __Inbound __traveler __is __unauthorized.__Inbound __traveler __is __unauthorized.__"_ The PA system blared to everyone.

Everyone continued to watch and wait, yet nothing happened…the wormhole simply disengaged, Gate defenses opened up and revealed nothing.

* * *

**SGC Conference Room**

SG1 and Hammond were seated around the large table, listening to the report of Captain Carter's investigation into the unexplained wormhole event. Xander only listened to it with half an ear.

"There was no organic residue, but they did pick up a faint nuclear signature. Traces of iridium."

"Iridium. That's the radioactive stuff we put in the Sagan Institute box on Cimmeria," Daniel frowned wonderingly, reading the briefing notes.

"You got it. I wanted it there so that it would leave a very recognizable signature and…"

"Same stuff?" Daniel queried, pushing his glasses up.

"Yeah," nodded Carter.

"Weren't the locals supposed to give that box to…Thor? Whoever, whatever, he is," Jack said pointedly.

"We assume he's a member of the Asgard, an extremely advanced culture," Teal'C stated flatly.

"The fact of the matter is, we really don't know," Jack shrugged.

"The Asgard exist, Colonel O'Neill," Xander stated. "We will meet them – soon."

"Is this your precognition talking, son?" Hammond asked.

"Indeed. We must go through the Stargate as soon as possible to Cimmeria," Xander explained.

"We?" Jack asked.

"You want to talk to the Asgard?" Daniel surmised.

"Yes, but things are not as they seem."

"Um, you all know I take great pride in my title as Mr. Positive. However, we did destroy their de-Goa'ulding thing. Might not they look unkindly on that?"

"They won't," Xander grinned, he had read about how Teal'C and Jack were trapped in a labyrinth meant for any Goa'uld stupid enough to go to Cimmeria. They'd had to unfortunately destroy a device mounted on the threshold of the place that killed any Goa'uld within a host – so that Teal'C could escape. "There's no way they'd know that a Jaffa would fall into their trap who wasn't an enemy."

Hammond frowned at Xander, then looked thoughtfully at the others. "All right. I'll tell you what. We'll send a probe though at 1300 hours. If everything checks out, you have a go.

* * *

**SGC Control Room**

An upgraded MALP was readied and Xander studied the contraption. It no longer was made of the flimsy construction of the previous probes he had seen the SGC use. It now had sleeker lines and was armored. Its instruments no longer protruded from its chassis but was now integrated and protected within. A bubble dome of darkened glass now held the camera, and its manipulator arm was in a rest position and also integrated into the armor.

"Nice," Xander commented to the Captain, indicating the MALP.

"Thanks, it'll stand up to considerable punishment now, even from staff blasts, and it's got an actuated Rail rifle and grenade launcher that we can fire remotely," she grinned.

"I guess the General got tired of having to order new probes."

"They do tend to get blasted a lot," Jack mused. "Now we can clear the area around an offworld gate with zero casualties."

The probe trundled forward on it's AT wheels and slurped into the event horizon.

"The probe should be there…now." Sam said as she brought up the video feed on one of the Command console's monitors and controlled the MALP with an integrated joystick.

One thing was immediately apparent as the signal came through and the MALP beamed back live images of the area around the Gate…dead bodies, of Cimmerians with their rough leather clothes with swords and axes lying near them.

"Those wounds have been caused by staff weapons," Teal'c pronounced grimly as the image focused on a dead body…plasma burns.

The camera panned further and stopped on a dead Jaffa – who had been slashed dead with an axe still embedded in him. The Jaffa soldier had what appeared to be a bird tattooed on his forehead.

"Friends of yours, Teal'C?" Jack asked mildly, but the Jaffa just shook his head. The monitor now showed a destroyed edifice in front of the Gate.

"That was the Scanning tower, making sure anybody who came through was not Goa'uld," Daniel tapped the screen.

"Clearly Cimmeria is no longer safe from the Goa'uld." Teal'C frowned.

The camera panned again and a fleeting image of a woman appeared and then vanished.

"Whoa! Pan right," Daniel said hurriedly.

Finally, it showed the dark haired woman, also wearing leathers and she held a dead Cimmerian and was speaking at the MALP with pain and heartache clear on her mid aged features.

"That's Gairwyn. The woman who showed us around. She's saying something." Daniel commented to Xander.

"Turn up the gain on the MALPs mike," Sam told the female air force tech sitting next to her.

'_Please…The Etins have come. Please help us. Please…The Etins have come. Please help.'_

* * *

**SGC Conference Room**

"Cimmerians use the word Etin for Goa'ulds. Gairwyn said the Etins are there. For a thousand years Cimmeria was safe from Goa'uld attack. Then we show up and screw up Thor's technology," Daniel said acerbically, though clearly directing the malice towards himself.

"Daniel Jackson is correct. The Goa'uld usually send an advance scout though the Stargate to determine a planet's worth and vulnerability. If none of the scout reports back, it is a deterrent to invasion," Teal'C explained, his jaw flexing.

"The point is, sir, the Goa'uld are there and the locals aren't exactly much of a match for them," Sam told the General.

"General, if we did screw up their world, we should take a little responsibility for fixing it, don't you think?" Jack said matter-of-factly.

"I understand that. But let me play devil's advocate for a moment here. It's not our world. Is it really any of our concern?"

"The destruction of the hammer device to save my life has caused this, it's my responsibility," Teal'C declared.

"General, I gave the order," Jack said resolutely.

"And I fired the staff at the machine," Daniel was equally firm.

"And I was…there," Sam stepped forward sheepishly.

General Hammond looked to Xander next. "If we hope to gain the Asgard as an ally then how we react to this situation will be how they judge us, General. I will go and help, however I can."

"All right. But keep your heads up on this one."

* * *

**Cimmeria**

It was technically Xander's first trip through the Stargate – though from a certain point of view he had already experienced hundreds of such events, as he was experiencing time in a non-linear fashion. The rollercoaster through an artificially created tunnel in subspace was exhilarating and yet not. The method of creating the wormhole was both ingenious, complex and yet simple – again depending on your point of view. He saw infinitely more detail than his companions, as he rocketed down the wormhole – he could see the very geometry of the sub-spacial construct.

The linear time it took to traverse was less than a second, but to Xander, it was a near eternity of beauty just studying the twisting and turning vistas of the Universe. He emerged out of the Cimmerian Stargate and set foot for the first time on another world.

Cimmeria was like most worlds in the Stargate network – Earth-like, the area around the Gate had a large clearing and was surrounded by woods, which stretched into the distance, and mountain ranges dotted the landscape. It was a rather overcast day and it seemed that rain was a possibility.

He stepped away from the event horizon, and Jack emerged next, followed by the rest of the team, all in full 'clone trooper' armor as Teal'C liked to call it. They all spread out and scanned the area with their MR rifles, before Sam declared, "No hostiles in scanning range, sir. Only a single human, I think that's Gairwyn hiding off to the north."

"She is not able to recognize you because of the armor and she is very unsure, even afraid of me," Xander explained. He was in his natural blue form and must look very alien to the native woman. "Remove your helmets so she can see a familiar face," he suggested.

Jack nodded at his team, and a moment later they were tucking the helmets under their arms. Before they could call to Gairwyn though, Jack was startled by something behind them.

"Holy…" Xander had already seen it. A Goa'uld pyramid was unveiling itself almost like something straight out of Starcraft, a kilometer beyond the rise. "Kids…now that is no weekend hunting lodge."

A twig snapping announced the arrival of Gairwyn as she passed through the foliage of the treeline and hesitantly walked towards them, staring occasionally at Xander with a weary look on her face.

"Its okay, Gairwyn, he's with us," Sam called out gesturing for the woman to come closer.

"You returned! Kendra said you'd come. She never doubted it…" Gairwyn cried excitedly, closing the distance and clasping hands with both Daniel and Sam. "Your coverings have changed since I last saw you."

"Yeah, Kendra, I want you to meet Alexander…he's new to our team…"

"Pleased to meet you," Xander bowed his head.

"You are a form of being I've not yet seen before," Kendra remarked. "But Thor teaches us to respect all things that live. Welcome."

"Kendra, what happened here?" Sam asked gravely.

"We thought it was Ragnorock," Kendra said in despair.

"That's the Norse Armageddon, the end of the world," Daniel commented.

"There was fire in the heavens. Five or six bursts in the sky in a straight line, but no sound. Then we heard an evil thunder and a great metal point came through the clouds."

"A Goa'uld Ha'tak," Teal'C translated this time, "a pyramid ship," he said further when Jack gave him a pointed look.

"Kendra knew it was the Etins, even before the burnings and the killings started. Our village is almost gone and most of our farms."

"You said Kendra knew we'd come. How?" Daniel asked.

"She gave me a box. She said to fly it through the portal. She said you'd know what it meant. The cost of sending it was great."

"The men who died here?" Sam gestured to the bodies.

"My husband and his brothers," Kendra whispered mournfully stepping closer to the bodies.

"I'm sorry," Sam said with sincerity. It was at this moment that an orange bolt of plasma impacted the DHD. Everyone whirled in the direction it had come from to see two Jaffa at the treeline, one brandishing his staff weapon, and the other about to blow on a stylized horn of sorts.

_How__quaint_ thought Xander. A gesture towards the Jaffa in question had both of them yanked off their feet and flying through the air towards them. Xander vaporized the one carrying the horn in midair and let the other with the staff land painfully near his feet. He kneeled next to the struggling Jaffa, his hand latching onto the forehead.

He only needed a few moments before vaporizing the Jaffa, and said, "These are the Jaffa of Heru'ur."

SG1 and Gairwyn looked somewhat shocked at the display of power. Then he remembered this was the first time he'd applied his abilities to a combat situation with them. They were in for an eye-opener.

"Are you some form of god?" Gairwyn asked in astonishment.

"No," Xander smiled serenely at her. "I am what your descendants could be countless years into the future."

"Damn," Jack snapped out of it and turned to Teal'C, "uh, you have the info on this Heru'ur?"

"He is the son of Ra and Hathor," the Jaffa explained. "A very powerful System Lord. Much feared, even among Goa'uld. He is a conqueror. He eliminates all who dare tread in his shadow, including other Goa'uld."

"Well, let's give him something to fear, shall we," grinned Xander. "Gairwyn, I'm going to send you to the place where your people are hiding. Coming with us and witnessing what we're going to do is not something that I think Thor would like. Understand?"

The awed Cimmerian only nodded before Xander snapped his fingers and she vanished with a blue flash.

"What's the deal with you knowing Thor wouldn't like it?" Jack asked.

"You forget my non-linear perception of time," Xander pointed out.

"Of course," Sam said in astonishment, "your future self has and will meet Thor. Damn, that gives me a headache."

"Temporal mechanics," Xander shrugged. "Anyway, Gairwyn and by extension her people are too…young to understand. No matter what I do, they will perceive me as a deity. It's bad enough that the Asgard allow themselves to appear as such to the Cimmerians." He turned to Jack. "What are your orders, Colonel?"

"Okay, Intel first, what can you tell me about the OPFOR?" Jack looked surprised that Xander was deferring to him.

"There are currently a thousand Jaffa on the ground," Xander reported, stretching his conventional and temporal senses out. "Five Ha'tak are in orbit, with a sum total of twelve thousand Jaffa. One hundred and twenty Death Gliders, and twenty five Goa'uld Al'Kesh – they're basically mid-range bombers and scouts – finally, Heru'ur himself is here too, inside the pyramid."

"This Heru'ur isn't tip-toeing about this conquest," commented Sam with worry.

"This is an Asgard protected planet, he probably figured he needed it," Daniel reasoned.

"Piece of cake," Xander disagreed.

"You're telling me you could take all that?" Jack said incredulously.

"You forget that the Al'Kesh and Gliders are still within the Ha'tak's. I've called in some backup to deal with the motherships in orbit. The only question is what you want to do with the ground forces and Heru'ur?"

"Backup?"

"All in due time, Colonel. Seeing will be believing."

"Ah, Okay, we battle our way to this System Lord and take him out, simple as that. You can shield us as we go…oh, and we gotta prevent him from escaping once he sees the writing on the wall…"

Xander nodded and gestured to the Stargate…which promptly rippled and vanished, along with the DHD.

Jack looked at where the device had stood and flatly said, "You can bring it back, right?"

"Would I have done it otherwise?" Xander retorted.

"Gotcha," nodded Jack and the rest of the team put their helmets back over their heads. With Xander in the centre of a rough diamond formation, Jack taking point, Sam and Teal'C on the flanks and Daniel on rear guard they headed towards the pyramid in the distance. Xander concentrated and created a shield that briefly flared blue and then vanished.

They met the first Jaffa patrol barely two hundred meters into their march through the woods. The patrol's orange plasma splashed into the shield, not even causing it to appear to the naked eye…the discharge just simply vanished.

Three near simultaneous rail gun bursts whined through the air; the small slugs traveling at hypersonic velocity ripped through the armour of the Jaffa like wet paper and deformed, delivering a frightful amount of energy that caused the back armour plate to completely tear off and mess of innards following in the bullets wake as it continued on its journey through a total of two trees before finally spending all its kinetic energy into the ground.

SG1 halted as they surveyed the mess the rail guns had made. The testing of the weapons on the range and with artificial targets didn't do the experience justice. They had intellectually known what the weapon would do to a body if hit, but seeing it in living color brought the sheer power of the thing finally into stark reality.

"Damn," Jack said into the shared com link. It was as if the Jaffa had been hit with M82 fifty cal sniper rifles, except this was a weapon capable of doing that on full auto.

"Indeed," Teal'C echoed the sentiment – when he had first joined SG1 and seen their projectile weaponry in action, it had been immediately dismissed as a crude weapon with no endurance. The weapon he was now holding had made him rethink carrying his venerable staff weapon – and it was clear now that his choice had been correct.

"Time's wasting, gentlemen," Xander pointed out.

"Er, right…" Jack gestured and they moved forward.

* * *

It was pretty much a turkey shoot from then on. The Jaffa tried staff cannons and used mass of fire to try and overwhelm the shield, but they didn't last long enough to even give Xander an ounce of effort to maintain it. The rail guns of SG1 were packing a deadly punch as they scythed through multiple Jaffa on numerous occasions. Xander was in another league however, sweeping gestures of his hands simply vanished the staff weapons directly from the Jaffa's hands – whom promptly retreated. More gestures vanished groups of Jaffa into clouds of constituent atoms.

They entered the pyramid and begun a systematic sweep, looking for Heru'ur.

They actually managed to catch up with the System Lord, but the snaky Goa'uld jumped into a set of Transport Rings and vanished before they could even get a bead on him.

"He's on one of his ships in orbit," Xander frowned, "he's going to target us with the main guns of the Ha'tak."

"Can you shield from something that powerful?" Sam asked in concern.

"Yes, but it would require all my concentration, but it will not be necessary." Xander snapped his fingers and they vanished from the pyramid.

They reappeared on a hillside a few kilometers away overlooking the pyramid just as sun bright plasma bolts arched deafeningly onto the pyramid they had just occupied – the unshielded structure was instantly destroyed in a towering explosion that sent a shockwave radiating out…the only clue to it being the earth disturbed in a perfectly concentric pattern.

"I think we better get out of here, I wouldn't put it above the snake to start glassing the entire area…" Jack stopped when Xander merely shook his head and raised a calming hand. Xander's eyes were visibly twinkling and a smile was on his face.

"Relax, Heru'ur has more important problems than little old us right now."

That statement was proved true by the fact that no more plasma bolts rained from the sky, and not a minute later a massive brief new sun appeared in the sky before fading quickly…a minute later two tiny suns appeared again…and again and again.

"Five explosions in space, five motherships," Jack wondered. "Is that your back-up?"

Xander only nodded.

A few moments later a massive storm cloud sprang up seemingly out of nowhere, and a strong wind surged past. A thundering continuous rumble reached their ears and the clouds grew to blot out the sun, turning day to a darkened version of itself.

"Oh my…" Jack O'Neill's eyes widened as what was clearly a massive starship emerged from the clouds. Xander chuckled at the stupefied expressions on the rest of SG1. It was over nine hundred meters from fore to aft. Six hundred meters of that was a three hundred meters wide depressed saucer section, whilst a secondary hull grew from underneath it to jut backwards, from this the ship continued to sprout two curved thin pylons connected to very long deceptively thin glowing blue and red pods. The hull was a dark black almost brown color with countless windows arced in extremely odd positions…"Carter. Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

"Yes sir," she nodded faintly.

"That ship looks a lot like…"

"The _Enterprise_," Xander finished for Jack with a smug grin. "Of course, I updated it considerably to my own specs and standards. I can't take credit for it totally though, you all know the _Enterprise-E_ from the last movie…well, the design you see now is the _Enterprise-J_…built in the twenty sixth century of the Star Trek Universe."

"Holy crap!" Jack turned to Xander with a pleading look. "Please tell me you named it that too."

The rest of the team could only gape in their helmets at that statement coming from their commanding officer. Even Teal'C rocked back in surprise.

"Yes, Colonel, it's named the _Enterprise_," Xander sighed indulgently.

"And you built it?" Sam asked next looking like she would keel over from astonishment.

"Well, not me precisely," Xander said vaguely and chuckled again. "I've requested we be beamed aboard. Don't be alarmed."

Multi-colored light suddenly emerged from the team members of SG1, within a moment it engulfed them completely and they vanished with a near silent surge of power. Xander gestured and the Stargate with its DHD reappeared near him. The Gate snapped to life with a wormhole instantly back towards Earth – he didn't need to go with them – since there was another copy of himself on the _Enterprise._

He stepped through the event horizon and was gone.

* * *

**Hallways – Sunnydale High**

Xander Prime had long debated with himself and his Doc Manhattan aspect over whether to allow this particular probability line to happen. It would get the PTBs nose of out of joint, but the end result would be more or less what they wanted, he was just tweaking things to be less crappy for the white hats. This was why he was walking the crowded hallways an hour after the shooting incident with Patrice the amoral assassin during the break after the Career Fair had concluded for the day. The teachers had rightly concluded that the shooting and subsequent grisly demise of the rampaging Police recruiter would not let any more work get done for the day, so the students were all milling about in their cliques and relaxing, though there was a distinct air of doom and gloom. The teachers and school counselor were all busy dealing with the mess and with traumatized students.

Xander ruefully reflected that he should've just teleported Patrice into space and let that do the job. He had let his emotions get the better of him at seeing her history and future. She would've been the primary contractor used by big energy interests to 'suppress' innovation and 'remove' any politician that made too much noise about promoting environmentally friendly and sustainable technologies, which would be the least of her sins.

Xander turned a corner into the adjoining much more deserted sciences hallway, allowing him to briefly see his 'tail'. He again struggled with himself, 'to allow or not to allow, that is the question.' It didn't help... and in the end, despite being superhuman, he was a guy deep down. So when he was intercepted by the door of the Physics lab, and grabbed by the arm and pulled inside, he didn't resist.

He didn't resist when he was pushed against one of the tables and a pair of luscious lips clamped on his own, and two perfectly tanned female arms rested on his shoulders. He initially hesitated in reciprocating, but the feel of the two substantial breasts behind a designer blouse squishing themselves against his chest sent his head spinning and he returned and deepened the kiss, settling his hands on curvy hips.

His ambusher moaned and deepened it further with a rather aggressive tongue duel. Xander could control many aspects of the world around him and himself. He knew himself down to the last quark of matter, neuron, synapse and could control it, but in this state of mind, he couldn't stop the...

Cordelia broke the kiss and embrace, "Don't poke me with that..."

"You've seen my power, Cordelia," Xander retorted. "Do you think I wouldn't spare myself the embarrassment, if I could?"

"Huh, I guess," she acknowledged.

"Was your test to your satisfaction?"

"Yes," she said in a rather astonished manner.

"You already know the answer for my part," Xander smirked at her goofily.

"You're still a dork," she retorted with blazing eyes. "You knew what I planning, and let it happen."

"I even know how this conversation will end," he shrugged unapologetically.

"Why?"

"I now know a mask when I see one, Cordelia," Xander said seriously. "You and your clique were Willow and my enemies' since kindergarten, but you see, I am both blessed and cursed with the ability to look into the past with a touch and see the future."

"Ah crud, so when we kissed..."

"Yeah...and I know what you'll become... suffice it to say, I know now that you hide your true brave, thoughtful and beautiful self underneath all that ice, and that is what let me allow this to happen... and I'm a guy, you're a stunningly hot babe, sue me. Doesn't matter, I can make all the money I want," Xander smirked at her smugly. "Don't worry, I also know what you truly see in me."

Cordelia's eyes went as wide as saucers for a moment. "Shit, Harris, give a girl a chance here..."

"Sorry," he nodded sincerely. "You also realize what this is gonna do to the Cordettes?"

"You clean up well to their eyes lately and they definitely see your hunkiness outlined in the clothes your 'wear', not to mention your GPA improvement," she shuddered suddenly. "It took the cake when Harmony of all people admitted she would..."

Xander held up his hands in a warding gesture, "Let's not finish that sentence, please. I've already heard it and will endeavor to forget."

"So...uh... you'll stay blue for me?"

"Oh, free show eh? Now that we're...involved... Cordelia, you should know I changed myself to 'normal' for your eyes because I saw how it was affecting your attention levels in class."

"It's free already, dweeb. And I can handle it..."

"That's not what your GPAs in the classes we share say, how about clothed in class, and blue nude out of class?"

"Fine," she said reluctantly, when she saw his point.

"Good," he nodded and changed himself to his blue form for her. Cordelia didn't get to enjoy the view for a few moments before she was swept into Xander's embrace and they dived into another long kiss.

* * *

**Library, Sunnydale High**

"She was definitely of the Taraka gang, Giles, and way gun happy, luckily Xander... dealt with her," Buffy explained with a wince.

"Yes, well, the uh, important thing is everybody's alright. Though, Xander, in the-the future would please not make such a – mess in front of so many people."

Bodyguard Xander nodded and had a weird, satisfied smile on his face for some reason. "She was decidedly unpleasant, her past and future actions touched a nerve."

"I'll take your word for it," Giles sighed. "It's clear that we're under serious attack, though assassin one and two has been dealt with, there's still a number three to contend with and we have no idea as to his whereabouts or abilities."

"He's currently staking out Buffy's house from next door. He looks like your everyday accountant or door-to-door salesman, average in every way, if a bit overweight, but that's normal. He's in fact; a non-corporeal demon that is possessing a mass of mealworms that it can control the molecular structure of, to appear normal. I'll research a way to kill it in a moment."

"Really? Fascinating. Good, uh and on that note, I've discovered the remaining keys to Drusilla's cure. The ritual requires the presence of her sire, and it must take place in a church on the night of the new moon."

"That is tonight," Kendra stated, and Buffy frowned with worry.

"Exactly, and the assassins were sent to delay and kill Buffy if possible and distract us."

"Buffy, what is it?" Willow queried curiously.

"Angel, he's Drusilla's sire." She looked at Giles seriously. "Will this ritual kill him?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it will."

"We need to find this church. We need to find where this ritual is gonna take place. Xander? Can you tell me now?"

He titled his head at her in consideration, checking the probability lines, before nodding, "Yes, hang on a moment... it's going to be cloudy night... hmmm, alright...crap, no, not that one. Shit, did you know that there are forty three churches in Sunnydale. Probably gonna have to be the abandoned ones...okay, there they are..."

"You're playing to the crowd, aren't you?" Willow giggled.

"Yeah," he shrugged. "In any event, the vamps aren't there yet, so we'll be wasting our time going now. We should try to find blueprints for the church and be prepared to deal with the large amount of vampires that are at Spike's beck and call, and we still have to find a way to deal permanently with the last assassin."

Buffy sighed in frustration, "Can't you just make bugman go kablooey?"

"I could, but that would just scatter the bug mass and the demon just ends up possessing another mass of bugs somewhere else."

"That's not too bad... he'll take forever to come back..."

"Buffy, do you realize how many bugs are out there in the world, and around the Sunnydale area, specifically underground?"

She looked uncertain, "No?"

"Let's just say he comes back very quickly."

"Don't worry, Buffy," Willow opened her laptop, "We'll save Angel."

"Angel?" Kendra frowned, "but our priority is to stop Drusilla."

Buffy gave her fellow Slayer a flat stare, "Look, you've got your priorities I've got mine. Right now, they mesh. So are you gonna help me, or are you gonna get out of my way?"

Kendra visibly considered it for a moment before nodding, "I'm wit you."

"Good. Cause I've had it. Spike is going down. You can attack me, you can send assassins after me, that's fine. But nobody messes with my boyfriend!"

* * *

**Giles' Office, Library, Sunnydale High**

Buffy was leaning idly against Giles' cluttered desk and sharpening her favorite knife with a sharpening stone and some oil. The new moon was not for another four hours so she was spending the time with some mindless activity to not dwell on the upcoming rescue of her boyfriend unnecessarily. Kendra had followed her to familiarize herself with the weapons that Giles kept secured and out of sight, feeling the balance of a sword while staring through the divider window that looked out on the library and the Scoobies doing their research gig.

"Jus' 'ow many know dat ye are a Slayer?"

Buffy frowned in thought for a moment, "Xander, Willow, and Cordelia… you haven't met her yet, she found out through circumstance when I saved her life a number of times."

"Dat is three too many. Did anyone explain to you what 'secret identity' means?"

"Nope, must be in the handbook," Buffy snarked and watched as Kendra picked up a crossbow. "Right after the chapter on personality removal… be careful with that thing!"

Kendra brushed off the concern, "Please. I'm an expert in all weapons."

She was proven wrong though when the crossbow abruptly released the bolt, shattering a lamp, and spent its remaining energy on the wall.

"Is everything all right?" Giles poked his head into the room.

"Yeah, it's okay. Kendra killed the bad lamp."

"Sorry! Dis, uh, trigger mechanism is different," she hastily put the weapon down.

"Not a problem. Xander! If you could…" Before he could even finish the sentence the destroyed lamp became undestroyed as if a film had been rewound, and was perched back on the desk as if nothing had happened, even the gash on the wall was gone, the only evidence it had happened at all was the bolt still lying on the floor. "Thank you. Less destroyed school property around here, the better."

When he was back in the library proper, Kendra hastily turned to avert her gaze from the window, as Xander had walked into view with a number of books floating in front of his face.

"How do you get used to him…to Xander?"

Buffy snorted in amusement, "You don't. The nude thing is but a cherry on the cake compared to his powers, which you just saw one small example of… but his biggest quality is his heart, loyalty and determination. He's the reason I'm alive and you're a Slayer, and he did that before he got Super'd. Speaking of which, I'm going to give you some free advice. Don't tell your Watcher about Xander."

"What? Why…"

"I'm telling you not because I want to protect Xander, but more for the sake of your Watcher and Watcher's Council as well. The instant they plan to try anything against Xander… he'll know about it and take steps to deal with it. Trust me; they _don__'__t_ want Xander on their case. Not if they wish to keep their money, jobs and eventually even their lives if they push things too far."

Kendra nodded seriously, "I'll consider dat. In de meantime, can you show me how to work dat crossbow?"

Buffy sheathed the knife and picked up the crossbow. "This is a pull and release type. You pull the bar trigger under the handle, keep the bar against the handle while you aim, and when you want to shoot, let go."

"Ah, I see." Kendra now picked up a stake and tested its sharpness. "Your life is very different than mine."

"You mean the part where I occasionally have one? Yeah, I guess it is."

"De things you do and have, I was taught, distract from my calling. Friends, school… even family."

Buffy was startled at hearing that last one, "Even family?"

"My parents, dey sent me to my Watcher when I was very young."

"How young?"

"I don't remember dem, actually. I've seen pictures. But dat's how seriously the calling is taken by my people. My modder and fadder gave me to my Watcher because day believe dat dey were doing the right ting for me, and de world." Buffy couldn't help the sympathetic look that crossed her face. "Please, I don't feel sorry for meself. Why should you?"

"I don't know, I guess it just sounds very lonely."

"Emotions are a weakness, Buffy. You shouldn't entertain 'em."

"It's what makes you human and a warrior, not just a weapon," she pointed at Kendra's own knife. "Anger, love, loyalty and others when used properly can keep you going long after others have quit or just plain died. I don't deny them or bottle them up. I put them into the fire in here," she pointed at her own heart. "That gives me strength, while the brain improvises and trained instincts do the rest."

They both turned to the door though as Xander entered with a knowing smile on his face, "Excuse me, ladies." He gestured and a number of books floated to land on Giles' desk while another book took to the air and opened itself before him and he walked out.

Buffy noticed Kendra's face darken in a blush and looking at the floor until Xander was gone.

"I'm guessing dating isn't big with your Watcher either."

"I'm not even permitted to speak to boys, Xander is the first I've even seen…like dat."

"Ooh boy, just remember he's a superhuman, no guy you meet in the future is really gonna be able to compete."

"My Watcher…"

"Watcher, swatcher," Buffy waved her hand dismissively. "There might come a day in the future where the need for a Slayer is… reduced. Enough that we could have proper lives, Kendra."

"What do you mean?"

"Xander, he can sort of see the future."

Kendra just blinked as she took that in. "A Seer as well…"

"It's not magic or hocus pocus, he's like his own personal crystal ball, and he's hinted to me that I shouldn't be so… negative about my future, that I will be able to have a somewhat normal life should certain things happen."

"But it's still not guaranteed."

"No. But I can hope."

* * *

**Abandoned ****Church, ****Getty ****Street, ****Sunnydale**

An out of phase Xander was casually leaning against one of the pews near the nave of the Church. It was actually a pity that it was abandoned, as it was a rather impressive church that had a very nice brass piped organ, with all sorts of the traditional Catholic imagery, in paintings, statues and stained glass windows, though everything had a layer of dust and linen covers. He idly wondered how all three vampires were faring just by being in the place, with all its religious symbolism and the fact that the building itself was shaped as a large cross. A rather worse for wear Angel bearing signs of holy water torture and Drusilla were chained together by the right wrist, whilst the chain itself hung off a pulley from the ceiling.

Spike was performing the ritual to restore Drusilla to full strength; it involved a lot of chanting, swinging an incense lantern, and reading from the Du Lac book – which was itself a source of Power and catalyst for the ritual. Xander reflected for a moment how easy it would be to just reach out with his own power and disintegrate the book, causing the entire ritual to collapse around Spike's ears. Unfortunately, that would be the mystical equivalent of cutting the wrong wire on a ticking bomb, which would kill Spike and Drusilla in the wild release of power, he didn't mind Drusilla turning to ashes in the wind, it'd honestly be doing the mad vampiress a favor, but it would kill Angel and the vampire with a soul was just too important for the future. Spike was a different story altogether – his latest examinations of the probability lines for the future showed that his presence was a necessity for the survival of all life on Earth as well. The PTBs were hedging their bets.

Spike reached the point where he had to pick up the Du Lac Cross, turn it upside down and pull the hidden dagger out. He had to do so carefully with his hands wrapped in the sleeves of the leather trenchcoat, lest he burn himself touching a holy object. It was disgusting how Du Lac had perverted that dagger – it could be used to heal a person from nearly any injury and bring someone back from death's door. Of course, it required a sacrifice, but usually condemned criminals were the ones one the donating end of that dagger.

Spike swiftly stabbed the dagger through the joined hands of Angel and Drusilla. A blindingly bright pink light emanated from the wounds created, and the pulse of raw energy radiated outward and faded out. Angel visibly slumped against the chains as his strength ebbed through the dagger and into Drusilla.

"Right then!" Spike rubbed his hands together in glee. "Now we just let them come to a simmering boil, and remove to a low flame."

Xander sensed Buffy, Kendra and Giles start their assault on the perimeter of vampires guarding the church at that moment. Bodyguard Xander was with them and making sure that the vamps couldn't use their superior numbers to simply overwhelm the three. Norman the Bugman Tarakan assassin was the first to be taken out by Xander.

The usual way that he killed was to simply disassemble into a wave of mealworms that swallowed you up and ate you alive. Norman had targeted Kendra but the mass of worms were halted in their tracks with a gesture from Xander and captured in a large zero-g trap.

The demon possessing the mass of worms couldn't find the coherency to come together again, nor could the worms move in zero-g. Xander flicked his fingers and a large bucket of industrial strength glue appeared above the worm mass and was poured into the zero-g field. He twirled his hand and the worms were spun as if in a washing machine with the glue.

He idly destroyed a vampire that had been looking to blindside Buffy, before setting the results of his work down. Norman the bugman was now Norman the bug-pancake; he snapped his fingers and teleported the dried mass of glue and worm, into a decaying orbit where it would burn up in the atmosphere.

Inside the Church, Xander Prime watched as Buffy and Kendra charged into the church proper, with Giles and Bodyguard Xander watching their backs, whilst the four minion vampires that were inside charged to stop them.

Spike watched with astonishment at Kendra as she went toe to toe with the vampires, dusting two with her stake in a graceful and economical move after a series of attacks that left them stunned and reeling, "Who the hell is this?"

Xander Prime phased himself into normal reality right in front of Spike and slammed palm strikes into the vampires' solar plexus, an elbow to the face as Spike bent over in pain, which sent him reeling back, only to catch a kick that sent the Aurelius vampire crashing into a pew.

Spike dazedly got up again, staring with both fear and anger at Xander.

"In answer to your question, that's Kendra, the other Vampire Slayer."

Kendra and Buffy were both engaged in furious fights with the last two vampires, both of whom seemed to be quite good in martial arts technique and they also felt like they were at least fifty or so years old, the chief minions. Spike charged Xander at this point in a rather stunning show of bravery or foolishness.

Xander deflected the punches and kicks of the vampire, pushing power into the deflections that made Spike wince every time it happened.

"Arrgggh," snarled Spike in frustration. "What does it take to hit you?"

Xander grinned wickedly, "I think you've got other things to worry about." His body abruptly lengthened weirdly and two more muscled arms seemed to sprout into the extra space. Spike was sufficiently caught off guard by the weird event to receive three powerful simultaneous jabs into his body, that sent him flying again and it also allowed Xander to catch the Du Lac dagger in the same moment. Bodyguard Xander had pulled it out at the two minute mark of the ritual.

Bodyguard Xander looked at the chained Angel and Drusilla with interest, observing the after effects of the energy transfer. The slapping of kicks and punches being exchanged by the two Slayers and vampires, Xander Prime fighting Spike – it wasn't really a fight, Xander Prime was just humoring the vamp and keeping him occupied.

It would be so easy. Just a thought, a twist of will, and both Angel and Drusilla would be dust in the wind. Xander touched finger to face of the Seer vampire and explored her future. It really galled him sometimes that sometimes there wasn't enough room for maneuver in what had to happen. Even as he saw the faces of those he would kill and the repercussions of choosing one way or the other, he began to truly understand why Doc Manhattan had started to become detached from humanity, its suffering and its joys. Half of the people Drusilla would kill would go on to cause some form of further evil, or cause further ripples along the probability lines which would negatively effect stuff. Even those who were completely innocent…

Xander pulled the finger away and shook his head. He slashed the chains effortlessly with a knife hand strike. Grabbed the weak Angel and unceremoniously threw him to one side and out of harms way, his other hand grabbed Drusilla and threw her the other way, to come to a sliding stop.

Xander Prime watched Drusilla skid across the floor and looked at the battered Spike he had been fighting, struggling to stand, his legs wouldn't cooperate. "You have done well, William."

"Screw you." Spike tried to spit blood onto Xander in defiance, but he just phased himself into intangibility and it splattered onto a broken pew behind him.

"Nighty night," Xander waved, Spike vanished with a flash of blue light, a recovering Drusilla followed soon after. This coincided with the double dusting of the last vamps in the church. Buffy rushed to check on Angel whilst Kendra and Giles walked over to Xander.

Giles sighed at the empty space that the two vampires had occupied with frustration, "We still can't kill them."

"There are bigger threats than them on the horizon," Xander shook his head, "and they have their part to play in them."

* * *

**USS _Enterprise_ – Hyperspace en route to Sol**

Jack O'Neill sat in one of the functional yet aesthetically pleasing Mess halls on board the fantastic ship he had just gotten a tour of and had to again pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming_.__Ouch!__Yeah__that__hurt_, so it was definitely real. His eyes ranged to the expansive floor to ceiling 'window' that showed the seemingly infinite shifting blue tunnel of Hyperspace, and his thoughts seemed to somehow just tumble to the forefront. He knew he should be doing cartwheels of joy and happiness due to the revelation of this ship and what it represented, yet he couldn't.

The setting down of a tray on his table broke him from the hypnotic view and he regarded his second in command – who looked like she was in Disneyland. "Carter."

"Sir, this ship is just…amazing there's no other word for it. I just spent the last five hours talking with one of the engineers – the power transfer system…"

"Aaaah," he halted her right there, sensing she was about to drown him in tech babble. He stared into his rather delicious cup of coffee, before glancing at the various crewmembers, all of whom were dressed in these weird personalized 'skinsuits'. Their rank indicated on shoulders and forearms.

"Sir, what's the problem?"

"My problem, Captain, is that _technically_ Xander is just a private civilian, yet he has this ship which alone can field more firepower than the entire US strategic deterrent, and apparently more are on the way. They are being assembled in a giant space station and crewed by people who should _technically_ still be kids on Earth."

"They were all orphans, sir."

"I know that," Jack snapped. "No matter how 'legally' he did it, the fact remains that he used his abilities to expedite their adoptions."

"Sir… he explained…"

"Oh sure, he 'explored' their future and only took those who were heading for early pointless graves... and he built his own little space army – whose accountable to no one on Earth."

"I am not the Dictator of New Sparta, Jack."

Jack winced as the familiar voice came from behind him. Xander walked into view nodding at a passing crewwoman who saluted him before heading out of the mess hall. "New Sparta is its own space borne society. It has a merito-technocratic Executive Council, on which I'm just an Advisor and one of its Generals. The general populace determines their own laws in an electronic legislature. They can call to task any of the Council, even me."

"And what if you don't like what they say or do?"

"It's their choice, Jack," Xander shrugged, "I took them from Earth and gave them all the choices they never would've had. I'd be unhappy and disappointed, but I'd abide by whatever they choose."

Jack chugged down a gulp of his coffee and sighed, "Fine. Though you know you're going to get flack from the politicians on Earth…"

Xander laughed, "Oh yes, right until they come to realization that Sparta's presence effectively secures Sol space from Goa'uld attack."

"Speaking of… you...I mean, would the Spartans mind if I use the Enterprise's weapons as inspiration for our own capital ship's armament?"

"We're all human, Captain Carter," Xander grinned. "Go ahead."

"So you think you can build all the big honkin space guns, Carter?"

"None of the weapons on the _Enterprise_ are beyond us, Sir," she nodded. "The nuke-pumped DEW missiles were already theorized and designed in the sixties. We didn't build them due to the Outer Space Treaty. It's just a matter of now actually building them with Naquadah to enhance their yield. Particle Cannons are just militarized particle accelerators and with compact Cold Fusion power we have enough juice to give them real punch. I'm going to need a bit of help with the Plasma Beam weapons though… I mean I know they're modified Ha'tak Capital Plasma Cannons, but we're still studying them at Area 51."

"Do your best," Jack nodded, before turning to glare at Xander. "I'm still pissed at you though; you've effectively made fighter pilots obsolete."

"Fighter pilots are still needed to fly and fight with the drones escorting the cap missiles. Heck, you'll even be able to fly the missiles themselves."

"It's not the same," Jack grumbled.

"You mean you'll miss the adrenaline of strapping a flimsy assemblage of aluminum and steel with engines onto your back?"

Jack kept glaring.

"Think of how you'll be able to kick Death Glider ass."

Jack relented somewhat and had to admit that would be cool.

"Behind the safety of shields and meters thick armor."

"How secure will the fighter drones be to hacking or electronic warfare?" Carter asked at this point.

"They operate on a subspace frequency hopping principle with randomized quantum encryption. Effectively unhackable. When I work out how to make mass produced high bandwidth quantum entangled pairs, then their data links will be _impossible_ to hack."

"Nice. So when are we getting home?"

Xander explained, "The Hyperdrive on this ship is one of the high-speed ones that Apophis inherited from Ra, like the one installed on Klorel's ship but built to higher quality standards so, and with my own twist, so another ten hours."

Jack looked at his watch, "Home in time for Simpsons, excellent."

* * *

_A/N: Whew, at last. Been working off and on for ages on this chapter. I just kept on running into brick walls with it. Hope it was worth the wait._


End file.
